i  (iiiKi 


LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 

MR.    GEORGE   COBB. 


Digitized  by  tlie  Internet  Arcliive 

in  2007  witli  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcli  ive.org/details/democracyordespoOOmilliala 


DEMOCRACY  OR 
DESPOTISM 


BY 

Walter  Thomas  Mills,  M.  A. 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE' 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  SCHOOL  OF 
SOCIAL  ECONOMY 

BERKELEY,  CALIFORNIA 
832 


Copyright,  1916,  by  HILDA  F.  MILLS 

United  States  and  Great  Britain 

February 


PREFACE 

This  book  has  been  written  in  an  effort  to  show  that 
if  the  world  goes  wrong  with  us,  it  is  our  own  fault  that 
it  does  so. 

If  we  do  not  like  what  the  great  private  monopolies 
are  doing,  the  way  is  clear  to  do  ourselves  what  ought 
to  be  done  instead. 

Practically  everywhere  there  is  liberty  enough  so 
that  if  the  people  would  use  the  power  they  have  they 
could  speedily  make  an  end  of  oppression,  an  end  of 
needless  poverty  and  a  beginning  of  a  healthful,  normal, 
glad-hearted  life  for  all. 

Everywhere  the  private  interests  are  strong  enough 
and  bad  enough  so  that,  with  a  little  more  of  inactivity 
on  the  part  of  the  many,  despotism  will  be  everywhere 
enthroned — "all  of  liberty  will  be  lost." 

The  mockery  of  the  oppressor  will  be  justified  and 
the  millions,  for  whom  deliverance  is  now  so  easily  in 
reach,  will  be  once  more  enslaved. 

This  is  an  effort  to  help  in  the  struggle  to  make 
Democracy  triumphant  in  all  the  institutions  and  activi- 
ties of  all  mankind. 

THE  AUTHOR. 

Berkeley,  California,  January  15,  1916. 


DEDICATION 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED  TO  THE  MEMOEY  OF 

JEAN  MARXINE  MILLS 

SHE  NEVER  KNEW  ONE  THE  INFERIOR  OF  HER- 
SELF. SHE  NEVER  DREAMED  THAT  ANYONE  COULD 
BE  BETTER  THAN  SHE  WAS.  SHE  WAS  THE  DEAREST 
LITTLE  DEMOCRAT  HER  FATHER  EVER  KNEW,  AND 
THE  MOST  LOYAL  FRIEND  AND  HELPER  THAT  EVER 
TRIED  TO  MAKE  HIS  BURDENS  LIGHT. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


AN  APPRECIATION 

The  years  of  travel,  of  service  in  the  cause  of  good 
government,  of  special  study  and,  finally,  the  putting  of 
these  conclusions  into  this  form,  were  all  impossible 
without  the  partnership  and  assistance,  in  this  as  in 
everything  else,  of  my  wife, 

HILDA  F.  MILLS. 

Further  mention  is  gladly  made  of  the  late  MR. 
H.  W.  BAIRD,  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  and  MR.  C.  C. 
TYLER,  of  Santa  Cruz,  California,  both  once  students 
of  mine  and  whose  financial  assistance  and  co-operation 
have  been  very  sincerely  appreciated. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


THE  OUTLINE 


Part  I 


Studies  in 
Government 


Chap. 

"■  1.  Why  Have  a  Government? 

2.  What  the  Government  May  Do. 

3.  The  Forms  of  Government. 

4.  Industrial  Democracy. 

5.  The  Elective  Franchise. 

>■  G.  The  Business  Body  Called  the  State. 


Past  II 


Current 
Politics 


'  7.  Political  Parties. 

8.  Obstructive  Forms  of  Party  Organization. 

0.  Obstructive  Forms  of  Government  Procedure. 

.10.  Militarism  and  Self-Government. 


Part   III 


Improved 
Machinery 


Universal  Political  Education. 

An  Established  Citizenship. 

A  Share  In  the  Government  by  All  the  Governed. 

Official  Fidelity  and  Efficiency  Enforced. 

The  Industrial  Organization  of  Political  Parties. 


Part  IV 

The         , 
Order       > 

OF 

Advancc 


How  to  Proceed. 

What  to  Do. 

Constitutional  Amendments, 

Public  Industrial  Enterprise. 

Industrial  Representation. 

Democracy  in  World  Politics. 

Forcing  the  Issue  in  Malting  the  Start. 


Part  V 
Sduhart 


23.     Summary  and  Conclusion. 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

Studies  in  Government 

CHAPTER  I 

WHY  HAVE  A  GOVERNMENT 

The  Control  of  Collective  Interests — The  Control  of  Collective 
Activities — Unanimous  Consent — Minority  or  Majority  Rule — Special 
Privileges  and  Minority  Control — Special  Privileges  and  Despotism 
— Special  Privileges  Result  of  Military  or  Economic  Achievement — 
Inherited  Privilege — Majority  Rule  and  Special  Privileges — Abuse  of 
Majority  Rule — The  Correction  of  Abuses  Under  Majority  Rule — 
Schemes  of  Advance  Without  the  State — The  Elective  Franchise 
and  Modern  Progress — New  Achievements  Necessary  to  Democracy. 


CHAPTER  II 

WHAT  THE  GOVERNMENT  MAY  DO 

The  Functions  of  the  State — Collective  Action  and  Government — 
The  Family — Corporations — Partnerships  —  Churches  —  Banks — All 
Governed  Somehow — The  State,  the  Army,  the  Navy,  the  Workshop 
— Corporation  Control  and  the  Government — Modern  Industry  and 
the  State — The  Individual  and  Collective — Government  Activities 
and  Responsibilities. 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT 

Majority  Rule  and  the  Common  Good — What  Is  a  Law — The  Des- 
potic and  Democratic  Notions  of  Law — The  Rise  of  Militarism  and 
the  Beginning  of  Despotism — 'The  Russian  Model — The  Industrial 
Boss — Rule  by  Appointment  of  Special  Privilege — Control  from  Top 
Down — Or  from  Bottom  Up — The  Seat  of  Authority — Industrial  and 
Political  Despotism  or  Democracy — The  Making  of  Both  Sides  of  a 
Bargain — Washington  or  Wall  Street — Which  Rules — How 


[ix] 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IV 
INDUSTRIAL  DEMOCRACY 

The  Menace  of  Democracy — Will  It  Lessen  Production — The 
Unemployed  Under  Industrial  Democracy — The  Unskilled  Workers — 
Managerial  Ability — The  Appointed  Boss  of  the  Absent  Owner — 
Wastefulness  of  Slave  Labor — The  Wreckage  of  Our  Work — The 
Interested  Workers — The  Better  Products — Race  Degeneracy  and 
Despotism — Private  Profit  and  the  Public  Good — Child  Life  and  In- 
dustrial Despotism — Idleness  and  Disease  Under  Industrial  Democ- 
racy— Will  Democracy  Corrupt  the  State — The  Cause  of  Political 
Corruption — Industrial  Monopoly  and  Despotic  Mastery — The  Poli- 
ticians, the  Millionaires  and  the  Purchasable  Voters — Voting  in  the 
Industries — An  Interested  and  an  Enlightened  Vote  When  "Voting 
on  the  Job" — The  Industrial  Foundation  of  Political  Democracy. 

CHAPTER  V 
THE  ELECTIVE  FRANCHISE 

The  Meaning  of  the  Ballot — Older  Than  Written  History — Primi- 
tive Democracy — Unanimous  Consent — The  Elections  of  Moses — Of 
the  Barbarian  Villages — War  Came  and  the  Ballot  Was  Lost — The 
Battle  for  Its  Restitution — (Mediaeval  Elections — The  Swiss  Cantons 
— The  Modern  Elective  Franchise — The  Beginning  in  America — Few 
Men  Voters — Universal  Franchise  West  of  the  Alleghenies^Plural 
Voting — Woman's  Vote — Why  the  Ballot — The  Ballot  or  the 
Bayonet. 

CHAPTER  VI 
THE  BUSINESS  BODY  CALLED  THE  STATE 

The  Business  of  the  State — Providing  for  the  General  Welfare — 
Shareholding  Companies — Elections  Are  Shareholders'  Meetings — 
Sound  Business  Principles — Partisan  Votes  in  a  Business  Body — 
Efficloncy  and  Responsibility  Alone  Considered — Shareholders'  Right 
to  Vote — Sex,  Race,  or  Education — Poll  Taxes — 'Bad  Business — 
Buying  from  Another  What  One  Can  More  Cheaply  Produce — 
Business  Despotism  and  Social  Democracy. 


PAET  n 
Current  Politics 

CHAPTER   VII 

POLITICAL  PARTIES 

Why  a  Political  Party — Old  Questions  and  New  Issues — Any  Ad- 
vance and  the  Corresponding  Adjustment — Sordid  Interests  and 
Social  Conflicts — Collective  Ballots — Small  Communities  and  Polit- 
ical Parties — The  Ancient  Parties— The  Political  Party  and  Civil 
War — Old  Party  Survivals — The  Greatest  Political  Problem — The 
Party  as  an  Instrument  of  Progress. 


M 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEE  VIII 
OBSTRUCTIVE   FORMS   OF  FARTY  ORGANIZATION 

The  First  Step  in  Social  Service — The  Caucus — The  Primary — The 
Convention — Its  Disorders — ■Alliances — Betrayals — Not  Deliberative 
Bodies — Party  Rules — Party  Platforms — Party  Candidates — Party 
Committees — Great  Private  Interests  and  Party  Committees — 
Immediate  Results — Money  in  Politics — Confusion  Planned  For — 
Bi-Partisan   Machines — Election   Frauds — Misleading  Campaigns. 

CHAPTER  IX 

OBSTRUCTIVE  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT  PROCEDURE 

Majority  Rule — Statesmen  and  Agitators — The  Desirable  and  the 
Possible — Constitutions  Everywhere  Obstructive — Hereditary  Author- 
ities— "Checks"'  in  a  Self-Governing  State — The  Power  of  the 
President — The  Veto — The  Uncounted  Minorities — The  Two  Houses 
— The  Standing  Committees — The  Obstructive  Power  of  the  Senate 
— The  Senate  Majority  Resting  on  14,000,000  people  Out  of  100,- 
000,000  Population — The  Supreme  Court — Its  Life  Tenure  of  Office 

Its  Abrogation  of  the  Acts  of  Congress — The  Supremacy  of  the 

Treaties — The  Great  Private  Interests  in  International  Affairs — 
Constitutional  Amendments — Obstructive  Processes  to  Defeat  the 
Public  Will — The  President  and  Congress  Governing  the  Country 
Four  Months  After  Their  Repudiation  by  the  People. 

CHAPTER  X 
MILITARISM  AND  SELF-GOVERNMENT 

The  Exigencies  of  Battle  and  the  Ballot — Old  Powers  Control  in 
War — International  Authorities  Purely  Despotic — The  Coming  of 
War — The  End  of  Democracy — The  Beginning  of  Despotism — Of  the 
Monopoly  of  Land — Of  Chattel  Slavery — Of  the  Subjection  of  Woman 
— Of  the  Class  Struggle — Military  Efficiency  and  Democracy  Impos- 
sible— Industrial  Despotism  and  the  Revival  of  Militarism — War 
and  Industrial  Despotism — The  End  of  Industrial  Despotism — The 
End  of  War — The  Causes  of  War  End  with  the  Coming  of  Indus- 
trial Democracy. 


PART  III 

Improved  Machinery 

CHAPTER  XI 
UNIVERSAL  POLITICAL  EDUCATION 

The  Danger  of  an  Ignorant  Vote — Despotism  and  Ignorance — ^The 
Limitations  of  the  Schools — No  Instruction  on  Current  Problems — 
Government  and  University  Bulletins  Reporting  Special  Investiga- 
tions— University  Bureaus  of  Legislation — Giving  Both  Sides  a 
Hearing — State   Pamphlets    in    Referendum   Elections — Permanent 


[Xi] 


CONTENTS 

Educational  Periodical  to  All  Voters — With  Accurate  Information 
in  Reply  to  All  Inquiries  on  Political  Matters  on  Disputed  Topics — 
The  Special  Work  of  the  University — Regular  Space  Given  Any 
Topic  on  Petition  as  in  a  Referendum — Candidates  Could  Not  Dodge 
— New  Questions  Could  Not  Be  Submitted  Without  Previous  Dis- 
cussion— Political  Platforms  Would  Be  the  Product  of  All  the 
People — Legislatures — Politicians — Campaign  Committees  Unable  to 
Ignore  or  to  Mislead — Conventions  Would  Lose  Power  for  Evil — 
Public  Control  Through  an  Ignorant  Vote  Thus  Made  Impossible. 

CHAPTER  XII 

AN  ESTABLISHED  CITIZENSHIP 

Systems  of  Registration — Compare  the  Records  of  Real  Estate 
Titles — Membership  in  a  Church,  Fraternity  or  Labor  Union — Regis- 
tration of  Citizenship  "Once  For  AH" — Certificates  of  Citizenship — 
Like  Shares  of  Stock  in  Any  Other  Business — Transfer  Any  Time — 
Falsification — Voting  the  Absent  and  the  Dead  Made  Impossible — 
Once  a  Citizen  Always  One — No  Loss  of  Franchise  or  Loss  of  Resi- 
dence— Citizens'  Rights  Established  in  Guaranteed  Employment — 
Share  of  Social  Income  in  the  Industrial  Commonwealth. 

CHAPTER  Xni 

A  SHARE  IN  THE  GOVERNMENT  BY  ALL  THE  GOVERNED 

The  Tribesman's  Vote — ^A  Parliamentary  Body — The  Right  to 
Make  Motions  as  Well  as  to  Vote  on  Them — The  Obstructive  De- 
vices— The  Initiative  and  Referendum — Obstructive  Policy — Vicious 
Legislation — Power  of  the  Machine — Mixing  of  Measures  or  of 
Measures  and  Candidates  Impossible — Urgency  Defined — 'Limited 
and  Still  Subject  to  Repeal  by  Referendum — Referendum  Law 
Amended  Only  by  Referendum — Preliminary  Study — Initiating  a 
New  I'arty  as  Well  as  a  New  Law. 

CHAPTER  XIV 
OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY  ENFORCED 

The  Nomination  of  Candidates — By  a  Convention — By  a  Refer- 
endum— by  a  Primary — By  a  Non-Partisan  Petition — Voting  by  a 
Plurality — By  a  Majority  with  Second  Elections — By  Preferential 
Voting — Proportional  Representation — Voting  by  Ballot — By  the 
Voting  Machine — The  Control  of  Public  Officials — By  a  Party  Com- 
mittee— By  a  Party  Referendum — ^By  the  Public  Recall — The  Short 
Ballot  and  Fixed  Responsibility. 

CHAPTER  XV 
THE   INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  POLITICAL   PARTIES 

Great  Private  Interests  In  Control  of  Parties — Through  Commit- 
tees— The  Industrial  Groups  of  the  Masters — The  Fight  for  Local 
Self-Government — Why — Business  Organizations — Labor  Unions — 
OoTcrnmeut  Departments — ^All  Act  Along  the  Line  of  the  Great 


[Xii] 


CONTENTS 

Industries — The  Vital  Connections  of  Individuals  with  the  Occupa- 
tions— Of  Occupations  with  the  Nation — Registration  by  Occupa- 
tions— Industrial  Representation  in  the  State — Party  Committees 
Chosen  by  Industrial  Groups — The  Public  Powers  and  the  Occupa- 
tional Groups — Industrial  Groups  to  Succeed  Industrial  Despots  in 
the  Mastery  of  the  State — Industrial  Democracy. 


PART  IV 
The  Order  of  Advance 

CHAPTEE  XVI 

HOW  TO  PROCEED 

Study  Valueless  Except  for  Action — Collective  Interests — Muni- 
cipal— State — National — International — Easiest  First — Fundamental 
Causes  Same  Everywhere — Most  of  Democracy — No  Democracy — 
Following  a  Great  Question — From  Smallest  and  Easiest  Field  to 
Largest  and  Hardest — The  First  Battle — The  Last  War. 

CHAPTER  XVII 

WHAT  TO  DO 

Propaganda  First — Voluntary  Association — Free  Distribution  of 
Periodical  Literature — Discussing  Both  Sides — Meetings — Debating 
Clubs — Organize  by  Industrial  Groups — Reach  the  Useful  People 
Through  the  Industries  in  Which  They  Are  Useful — Smallest  Begin- 
nings— Winning  the  World. 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS 

The  Initiative,  the  Referendum,  the  Recall — Guarding  These 
Measures — Removing  All  Limitations  on  the  State — The  Right  of 
the  State  or  of  Any  Political  Subdivision  of  the  State  to  Engage 
In  Any  Industry — The  Life  Tenure  of  the  Judges — The  Powers  of 
the  Court — ^The  Upper  House — Universal  Suffrage. 

CHAPTER  XIX 

PUBLICLY  OWNED  INDUSTRIAL  ENTERPRISES 

Private  Monopolies  and  Despotism — First  Those  Whose  Robberies 
Are  Most  Evident — The  Most  Unpopular — Explosives — Poisons — 
Opiates — Narcotics — ^Intoxicants — The  Worst  of  the  Trusts — Enter- 
prises Which  Promise  Great  Benefits — Ground  Rents  and  Home 
Building — The  Money  Trust  and  Farm  Loans — Public  Enterprise 
and  the  Unemployed. 


[xiii] 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEE  XX 
INDUSTRIAL  REPKESENTATION 

Assets  and  Liabilities — Crooked  National  Bookkeeping — A  Forced 
Balance — Honest  "Publicity" — Private  Control  Ends  with  the  End 
of  Private  Ownership — Government  Ownership  with  Democratic 
Control  of  the  Government — Industrial  Democracy — The  Credit  and 
the  Debit  Side  of  the  Accounts  of  the  Useful  People  and  of  the 
Stnto — An  Honest  Balance — Industrial  Enterprise  in  a  Democratic 
State  Makes  Necessary  Industrial  Representation  in  the  State — 
Thus  Ends  Despotism. 

CHAPTEE  XXI 
DEMOCRACY  IN  ^YORLD  POLITICS 

World  Peace  Through  Fear — Military  Mastery — "Preparedness" 
for  Destruction — Tlie  End  Destruction — Insanity  and  Robbery — A 
World  Congress — International  War  Can  Come  Only  While  Interna- 
tional Plunder  Lasts — International  Interests  of  Miners — Transport 
Workers — Manufacturers — All  Producers — Industrial  Democracy — 
Industrial  Representation  in  the  State  of  the  International  Indus- 
tries— The  Beginning  of  International  Democracy — The  Dominant 
Interest  Then  to  Raise  the  Standards  of  Living  in  All  Countries — 
War  Becomes  Impossible  as  Democracy  Becomes  Triumphant. 

CHAPTEE  XXII 
FORCING  THE  ISSUE 

Fundamental  Changes — Subject  to  Constitutional  or  Hereditary 
Powers — Is  a  Violent  Revolution  Necessary? — Even  Hereditary 
Powers  Can  Continue  Only  with  Continued  Consent — The  Right  of 
Petition — Majorities  Need  Not  Petition — They  Command — The  Con- 
sent of  the  Governed — The  First  Battle — A  Pledge  Petition — Reach- 
ing Those  Already  Elected — A  Pledge  with  Teeth — A  "Petition  with 
Boots  On" — A  Hard  Battle — War  to  the  Death — No  Price  Too 
Great  for  Free  Institutions. 


PART  V 

CHAPTEE  XXni 
A  Sununary  and  the  Conclusion 

The  State  Is  Necessary — Special  Privileged  Minority  or  Majority 
Rule — Despotism  or  Democracy — In  Industry  and  Commerce — The 
Shareholder's  Rights  in  the  Business  Body  Called  the  State — Polit- 
ical Parties  and  Economic  Conflicts — Their  Corrupt  Control  by  Big 
Interests — Their  Just  Control  by  the  Industrial  Groups — Universal 
Political  Education — Constant  and  Efficient  Control  of  the  Public 
Servant — A  Practical  Program — Constitutional  Amendments — Pub- 
licly Owned  Industries — International  Industrial  Solidarity  and 
World  Peace — Forcing  the  Issue — ^A  World  Democracy.  £> 


[xlv] 


PART  I 
STUDIES  IN  GOVERNMENT 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

CHAPTER  I 
Why  Have  a  Government? 

Governments  do  not  primarily  exist  to  en- 
able a  part  of  the  people  to  exercise  authority 
over  the  rest  of  the  people. 

Governments  do  not  primarily  exist  to  en- 
able all  of  the  people  together  to  exercise 
authority  over  each  one  of  the  people  individu- 
ally. 

Governments  are  necessary  and  their  exist- 
ence is  justified  because  there  are  things  which 
must  be  used,  if  life  is  to  be  maintained,  and 
which  are  of  such  a  nature  that  they  cannot 
be  used  individually  but  must  be  used,  if  they 
are  used  at  all,  by  groups  of  people  acting 
together. 

Such  things,  and  the  processes  of  using  such 
things,  must  be  controlled  or  managed,  that 
is,  governed  in  some  way. 

[1] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

If  any  individual  be  given  the  power  of 
fixed  and  lasting  mastery  over  things  so  col- 
lectively used,  that  makes  necessary  the  servi- 
tude of  all  others  who  join  in  their  use. 

If  any  group  of  individuals,  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  others,  be  given  together  the  fixed  and 
lasting  mastery  over  things  so  collectively 
used,  that  still  makes  necessary  the  servitude 
of  all  others  who  must  use  these  things  but 
are  not  admitted  into  the  governing  group. 

These  things  and  the  use  of  these  things  so 
collectively  used  must  be  governed  in  some 
way.  There  are  only  three  ways  possible. 
They  must  be  governed  by  a  minority 
of  those  interested,  or  by  a  majority  of  those 
interested,  or  by  unanimous  agreement. 

If  nothing  is  to  be  done  with  the  things  used 
together,  as  long  as  any  one  objects,  then,  as 
there  will  always  be  someone  to  object,  nothing 
can  be  done  at  all. 

If  any  share  of  those  concerned,  less  than 
the  majority,  is  to  control  such  things  and 
the  use  of  such  things,  that  control  cannot  be 
established  as  a  fixed  and  lasting  condition,  in 
any  community,  except  as  the  result  of  special 

[2] 


WHY  HAVE  A  GOVERNMENT? 

privileges  of  some  sort.  But  it  is  impossible  to 
confer  special  privileges  of  any  sort  on  any- 
one without  at  the  same  time  enforcing  corre- 
sponding disadvantages  on  all  the  rest. 

Special  privileges  may  be  the  result  of 
military  adventure  and,  once  established  by 
force,  they  may  be  handed  down  by  inherit- 
ance. 

Special  privileges  may  be  secured  by  eco- 
nomic achievement,  thus  securing  to  the  few 
the  control  of  the  means  by  which  the  many 
live,  and  so  an  indirect  but  most  effective  pub- 
lic power  is  obtained  in  the  community,  and 
this  power  once  secured  by  social  services,  by 
good  fortune,  by  speculation,  by  "graft"  or 
fraud,  may  also  be  handed  down  by  inherit- 
ance. 

In  any  case,  the  power  of  the  minority  to 
control  in  the  mastery  of  things  in  which  they 
are  concerned  can  be  established  in  the  first 
place,  or  be  perpetuated  afterwards,  only  by 
special  privileges,  granted  to  the  few  which  al- 
ways means  that  just  and  equal  opportunities 
are  thereby  taken  from  the  many. 

If  special  privilege  is  not  to  exist,  then  ma- 
jority rule  is  the  only  effective  method  for 

[3] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

the   government  of  those  things   which  the 
people  must  use  or  do  together. 

It  is  claimed  that  the  majority  may  oppress 
the  minority  and  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
people  who  are  just  and  intelligent  are  always 
in  the  minority,  but  the  trouble  is  that  those 
who  make  up  the  minority,  who  are  just  and 
intelligent  people,  are  rarely,  if  ever,  the  same 
people  as  those  holding  special  privileges,  and 
hence,  who  make  up  the  ruling  minority. 

If  it  should  ever  happen  that  the  people 
having  special  privileges  should  also  be  the 
most  intelligent  and  the  most  just,  still  their 
power  to  rule  would  not  depend  upon  their 
sense  of  justice  or  their  superior  intelligence, 
but  upon  their  special  privileges.  And  that 
power  to  rule,  resting  on  special  privileges, 
could  be  enforced  when  both  justice  and  intel- 
ligence are  lacking  or  when  the  poison  of  self- 
interest  has  misled  intelligence  and  has  blinded 
justice. 

Hence,  it  may  be  said  that  the  experience  of 
mankind  justifies  the  conclusion  that  minority 
control  of  collective  interests,  based  as  it  must 
be,  on  special  privileges,  can  lead  only  to  the 

[4] 


WHY  HAVE  A  GOVERNMENT? 

use  of  the  public  power  in  behalf  of  the  few 
who  possess  that  power  and  to  the  measureless 
loss  of  the  many  who  are  voiceless. 

It  is  admitted  that  the  majority  is  not  al- 
ways just  or  intelligent,  but  majority  rule 
need  not  rest  upon  special  privileges  of  any 
sort.  Majority  rule  does  not  depend  on  a 
majority  made  up  of  any  fixed  and  lasting 
portion  of  the  people. 

Under  majority  rule  with  no  special  privi- 
leges, inherited  or  achieved,  derived  from 
either  military  adventuret  or  from  economic 
enterprise, — under  such  majority  rule,  those 
who  are  in  the  majority  today  may  be  in  the 
minority  tomorrow.  Those  in  the  minority  at 
any  time,  by  education,  by  agitation  and  by 
organization,  may  make  themselves  the  major- 
ity, if  their  cause  can  be  made  to  seem  to  be 
both  wise  and  just. 

Those  who  are  in  the  majority,  having  no 
political  or  economic  privileges  which  others 
do  not  enjoy,  can  keep  the  majority  in  the 
control  of  collective  concerns  only  by  appeal- 
ing to  the  just  and  wise. 

Under  such  an  administration  of  the  public 
[6] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

power,  that  which  is  unjust  and  unwise  may 
frequently  prevail,  but  only  because  it  has  been 
mistaken  for  the  just  and  wise,  and,  hence,  it 
can  continue  to  prevail  only  so  long  as  it  can 
make  effective  the  disguises  under  which  it  has 
come  to  power. 

To  govern  by  unanimous  agreement  the 
things  collectively  used  is  impracticable.  The 
government  of  things  collectively  used  by  a 
minority  can  be  established  or  continued  only 
by  the  power  of  special  privileges,  and  the 
existence  and  dominance  of  these  special  privi- 
leges make  a  just  and  wise  administration  of 
collective  interests  absolutely  impossible. 

Majority  rule  of  the  things  collectively  used 
may  be  found  to  be  not  without  frequent  and 
disastrous  failures,  but  under  majority  rule  the 
way  is  easiest  to  correct  wrongs,  to  retrieve 
misfortunes,  to  reform  abuses  and,  in  the  end, 
to  secure  the  common  good.  Under  majority 
rule,  all  these  can  be  done  without  unearned 
advantage  for  the  few,  and  without  undeserved 
misfortune  for  the  many. 

Because  majority  rule  is  so  much  more 
direct  and  effective  than  any  other  possible 

[6] 


WHY  HAVE  A  GOVERNMENT? 

method  of  administering  collective  interests,  it 
must  stand  as  the  best  method  that  can  be 
suggested  in  a  matter  where  some  method 
must  prevail.  Majority  rule  must  stand  so 
long  as  there  are  things  which  must  be  used, 
or  carried  on,  together.  Among  the  things  so 
used,  or  carried  on,  together,  are  all  of  the  great 
industrial  and  social  services  on  which  the 
existence  of  mankind  depends. 

The  current  abuses  of  majority  rule  are  not 
to  be  denied.  The  elective  franchise  is  not  uni- 
versal. The  methods  of  organization  are 
always  clumsy  and  sometimes  infamous.  The 
ballot  is  permitted  to  apply  only  to  unimpor- 
tant collective  interests.  The  things  which  peo- 
ple know  nothing  about  they  vote  about,  and 
the  things  which  they  know  all  about  they  are 
not  permitted  to  vote  about.  Things  which 
concern  them  only  in  the  remotest  way  they 
vote  about,  and  things  which  affect  them  in  a 
most  direct  and  vital  manner  they  are  not  per- 
mitted to  vote  about.  Misinformation  before 
elections,  intimidation  and  falsifying  of  re- 
turns at  elections  and  the  betrayal  of  trusts 
after  elections  are  admitted. 

[7] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

It  is  even  insisted  that  society  must  escape 
from  these  abuses  or  popular  self-government 
cannot  long  abide,  and,  further,  it  is  both  ad- 
mitted and  insisted  that  real  majority  rule  is 
-impossible  so  long  as  special  economic  advan- 
tages or  hereditary  special  privileges  are  held 
by  the  few  as  related  to  the  many.  And  it  is 
admitted  that  this  is  true  under  all  established 
governments,  and  everywhere. 

But  even  this  is  not  a  sufficient  reason  for 
the  abandonment  of  majority  rule  and  the 
voluntary  return  to  other  forms  of  govern- 
ment, for  the  admitted  abuses  under  majority 
rule  become  the  fixed  and  established  order  of 
things  under  any  other  form  of  government 
which  it  is  possible  to  suggest. 

All  schemes  which  seek  for  social  progress 
without  the  ballot  and  with  no  dependence  on 
majority  rule  are  only  proposals  to  revert  to 
the  older,  cruder,  and  outgrown  methods  of 
collective  action  which  had  been  on  trial  ten 
thousand  years  before  the  modem  elective 
franchise  became  a  method  of  government  and 
an  instrument  of  progress. 

The  more  rational  program  is  to  fight  for 

[8] 


WHY  HAVE  A  GOVERNMENT? 

majority  rule  wherever  it  does  not  exist  and 
to  use  to  the  uttermost  the  power  of  majority 
rule  wherever  it  does  exist,  or  to  whatever 
extent  it  may  exist  for  the  following  purposes : 

1.  To  extend  the  franchise  until  all  who  are 
concerned  in  any  matter  shall  be  heard  in  all 
matters  which  concern  them. 

2.  To  simplify  and  perfect  the  machinery  by 
the  use  of  which  it  is  sought  to  make  both  just 
and  effective  the  public  will. 

3.  To  relate  all  voters  to  the  ballot  box  and 
to  their  most  vital  collective  interests  in  such 
a  way  that  both  men  and  women  everywhere 
will  vote  about  the  things  they  know  about  and 
in  which  they  are  most  vitally  concerned. 

4.  On  the  one  hand,  to  make  impossible  the 
existence  of  such  political  parties  as  may  exist, 
not  for  the  settlement  of  questions  of  public 
controversy,  but  which  take  advantage  of  all 
such  controversies  to  further  their  own  exist- 
ence and  to  increase  the  power  of  those  in  con- 
trol, and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  promote  and  to 
protect  the  existence  and  the  activities  of  all 
political  parties  which  seek  to  render  rational 
service  in  the  consideration  and  settlement  of 
questions  of  serious  public  controversy. 

[9] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

5.  To  make  the  majority  vote  the  only  su- 
preme authority  beyond  which  there  can  be  no 
appeal,  and  to  which  appeal  may  always  be 
made,  each  issue  on  its  own  merits  separate 
from  all  other  measures  and  apart  from  the 
personal  fortunes  or  ambitions  of  any  person 
or  persons  whatsoever. 

6.  To  relate  the  public  official  to  the  con- 
stituency which  he  serves  in  such  a  way  that 
at  any  time  the  people  may  remove  a  faithless 
official  without  being  compelled  to  abandon 
measures  of  public  importance  or  other  officials 
whose  character  and  services  are  above 
reproach. 

7.  To  abolish  the  last  vestige  of  special  priv- 
ilege of  any  sort  which  may  give  to  anyone 
personal  power  over  any  other,  and,  hence,  to 
relate  the  responsibilities  imposed  upon  every- 
one to  the  opportunities  afforded  him,  in  such 
a  way  that  personal  achievements  and  personal 
failures  shall  be  solely  because  of  personal 
character  and  personal  conduct,  and  not  be- 
cause of  social  favoritism  or  social  wrongs. 

Without  waiting  for  the  triumph  of  new 
political  parties  or  the  destruction  or  abandon- 

[10] 


WHY  HAVE  A  GOVERNMENT? 

ment  of  old  ones,  can  the  power  of  the  major- 
ity be  so  used  as  to  compel  such  changes  in 
the  machinery  of  the  government? 

To  answer  this  question  is  the  purpose  of 
the  following  pages. 


[11] 


CHAPTER  II 

What  May  the  Government  Do? 

It  is  frequently  contended  that  some  cer- 
tain political  proposal  may  be  desirable  enough 
so  far  as  the  proposal  goes  but  that  it  does  not 
properly  come  within  the  functions  of  the  state. 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  govern- 
ment exists  only  because  of  collective  interests. 
Then  we  can  proceed  with  the  inquiry  as  to 
what  particular  collective  interests  the  govern- 
ment may  concern  itself. 

It  is  perfectly  evident  that  wherever  there 
are  collective  interests  of  any  sort  there  must 
be  government  of  some  sort. 

Families  are  made  up  of  groups  of  people. 
In  the  families  there  must  be  some  control  of 
the  collective  interests.  That  control  consti- 
tutes family  government.  Family  government 
does  not  exist  apart  from  the  state  and  with- 
out regard  to  the  larger  collective  interests  in 

[12] 


WHAT  MAY  THE  GOVERNMENT  DO? 

which  any  particular  family  is  involved   in 
common  with  all  other  families. 

The  government  fixes  the  status  of  the  fam- 
ily. The  ownership  and  management  of  its 
collective  properties,  the  control  of  the  chil- 
dren, the  mutual  interests  of  all  in  the  proper- 
ties, earnings  and  behavior  of  each,  are  fixed, 
and  may  be  enforced  under  the  law.  If  the 
husband  whips  the  wife  and  the  law  holds  that 
this  is  permissible  and  protects  the  husband  in 
doing  so,  as  was  the  case  recently  in  a  certain 
court,  then  the  husband  is  thereby  made  a  pub- 
lic officer  and  the  government  assumes  respon- 
sibility for  that  sort  of  family  government.  No 
man  can  escape  his  responsibility  for  such  an 
act  on  the  ground  that  he  himself  does  not 
whip  his  own  wife.  He  is  himself  responsible 
for  wife  whipping  so  long  as  the  government 
of  which  he  is  a  part  authorizes  the  doing  of 
such  a  thing. 

Partnerships,  corporations,  and  all  commer- 
cial organizations  involve  collective  interests, 
and  these  collective  interests  are  controlled, 
that  is,  governed,  under  laws  fixing  the  rights 
both  of  property  and  of  persons  to  the  minut- 

[13] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

est  detail  and  the  rules,  officers  and  agents  of 
these  partnerships,  corporations  and  commer- 
cial bodies  are  the  rules,  officers,  or  agents  of 
the  government  and,  acting  under  the  govern- 
ment's authority  and  protection,  whatever 
these  officers  do  in  these  matters  of  collective 
concern,  they  do,  not  only  as  the  agents  of 
those  who  are  in  those  bodies,  but  as  the  repre- 
sentatives or  officers  of  the  whole  body  of 
society. 

Their  activities  are  government  activities.  If 
their  actions  are  ^vrong,  then  those  larger  col- 
lective bodies,  including  all  partnerships,  cor- 
porations, commercial  bodies,  and  all  other 
organizations  of  men,  are  bound  to  bear  the 
responsibility  for  such  wrong  doing.  They  are 
not  bodies  of  men  existing  independently  of  the 
government,  they  are  a  part  of  the  government 
machinery.  Their  usages,  rules,  services,  and 
robberies  are  all  a  part  of  the  government.  It 
is  not  true  that  the  government  has  and  ought 
to  have  nothing  to  do  with  such  organizations. 
Even  as  they  are  now  organized,  they  are  gov- 
ernment agencies,  and  the  government  is  now 
responsible  for  their  activities.  It  is  not  a 
question  whether  there  should  be  government 

[14] 


WHAT  MAY  THE  GOVERNMENT  DO? 

activity  in  such  matters.  The  government  is 
already  active.  It  is  only  a  question  whether 
what  the  government  does  now  in  these  mat- 
ters is  the  wisest  thing  to  do. 

The  government  now  interferes  to  enforce 
their  rules,  to  protect  their  enterprises,  to  col- 
lect their  debts,  to  defend  them  from  trespass, 
— and  whatever  they  do,  they  do  with  the  pub- 
lic courts,  the  public  jails  and  the  public  guns 
forever  at  their  backs. 

Again,  it  is  not  a  question  whether  the  gov- 
ernment is  to  be  withheld  from  activity  in 
enterprises  of  this  sort.  It  is  already  active. 
It  is  only  a  question  whether  what  it  is  doing 
is  the  best  thing  that  can  be  done  under  the 
circumstances. 

Churches  are  made  up  of  groups  of  people. 
Like  all  other  groups,  those  who  are  in  them 
are  related  to  each  other  in  a  way  which  gives 
them  special  collective  interests  which  together 
they  will  manage  in  their  own  way.  But  even 
churches  have  both  social  obligations  and  social 
benefits  as  related  to  the  use  of  the  public 
power.  It  is  not  true  in  America,  nor  any- 
where else,  that  there  is  entire  separation  of 
[16] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

church  and  state.  Properties  held  by  the 
churches  are  held  under  titles  created  under 
public  laws,  they  are  exempt  from  taxes  under 
the  public  laws,  they  enforce  their  discipline 
with  the  consent  and  under  the  authority  of 
the  state. 

It  is  not  true  that  they  have  no  connection 
with  the  state.  Their  ministers  are  given  cer- 
tain public  duties  in  connection  with  the  birth, 
naming  and  marriage  of  the  living,  and  in  the 
burial  of  the  dead. 

They  are  not  independent  from  the  state. 
The  state  guarantees  to  the  churches  and  to 
those  who  are  in  the  churches  that  those  not 
concerned  in  the  affairs  of  any  particular 
church  shall  not  interfere  with  those  matters 
which  do  not  concern  them.  It  should  do  the 
same  for  any  other  sort  of  an  organization  of 
any  kind  whatsoever. 

But  no  state  will  allow  any  church,  or  the 
members  of  any  church,  under  pretense  of  re- 
ligious liberty,  to  do  the  things  which  the  crim- 
inal law  forbids,  or  to  do  any  of  those  things 
which  are  in  admitted  violation  of  the  common 
good.  Regardless  of  the  pleadings  of  any 
church,  polygamy  is  forbidden.    Regardless  of 

[16] 


WHAT  MAY  THE  GOVERNMENT  DO? 

the  pleadings  of  any  church,  inhuman  sacri- 
fices and  immoral  ceremonies  are,  and  ought  to 
be,  forbidden. 

When  the  holy  water  was  found  to  have  six 
miUion  typhoid  germs  to  the  cubic  inch,  the 
church  was  required  to  make  sanitary  by  the 
use  of  carbolic  acid  that  which  was  already  holy 
by  the  blessings  of  the  church. 

The  churches  may  have  their  private  schools. 
Why  not  ?  But  if  the  law  authorizes  and  pro- 
tects them,  they  become  public  schools  serving 
a  public  function  under  the  provisions  of  the 
public  law,  and  should  it  ever  happen  that 
from  the  students  of  any  particular  private 
school  an  unusual  percentage  of  students 
should  show  up  in  the  penitentiary,  then  the 
whole  body  of  society  could  not  dismiss  its 
responsibility  because  any  particular  church  or 
other  voluntary  organization  was  the  owner  of 
such  a  school.  In  the  same  way,  farmers'  or- 
ganizations, labor  unions  and  fraternal  soci- 
eties all  exist,  if  they  exist  at  all  as  lawful 
bodies,  because  those  whose  collective  interests 
are  involved  are  in  that  way  able  to  have  their 
collective  interests  promoted  and  protected  in 
some  lawful  manner. 


PEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

It  is  not  a  question  wKether  the  government 
shall  interfere.  All  these  groups  must  have 
government  of  some  sort,  and  that  smaller  gov- 
ernment in  any  such  collective  interest  of  the 
few  cannot  exist  except  as  a  part  of  the  organic 
activities  which  together  make  up  organized 
society, — for  government  is  simply  that  whole 
body  of  those  organized  activities  which  to- 
gether constitute  the  means  and  methods 
bj^  which  collective  interests  are  provided 
for. 

Bank  cashiers,  grocery  clerks,  delivery  men, 
priests,  teachers,  lodge  secretaries,  walking 
delegates,  physicians,  attorneys  and  under- 
takers are  each  of  them  men  of  authority  in 
the  places  which  create  for  them  their  responsi- 
bilities and  are,  in  fact,  agents  and  officers  of 
the  law. 

The  great  public  questions  of  the  hour  in- 
volve government  problems,  not  so  much  in 
regard  to  the  officers  of  the  army  and  navy,  the 
post-office  or  the  penitentiary,  as  in  regard  to 
the  government  of  corporations,  manufactur- 
ing enterprises,  the  work  of  the  banks,  the 
importers,  and  to  all  business  activities  and 
relations  of  every  imaginable  variety. 

[18] 


WHAT  MAY  THE  GOVERNMENT  DO? 

Once  the  central  governments  were  entirely 
military.  Then  industry  was  of  importance 
only  as  related  to  the  army's  commissary;  but 
now  the  great  governments  are  becoming  great 
industrial  bodies.  The  old  government  was 
modeled  after  the  military  camp;  the  modern 
government  is  more  and  more  adopting  the 
forms  of  industrial  activity.  Now  the  army 
exists  mainly  for  use  in  capturing  markets  and 
breaking  strikes. 

The  head  of  the  old  government  was  selected 
because  of  his  capacity  as  a  soldier;  the  heads 
of  the  new  governments  are  selected,  pro- 
moted, or  removed  as  thej'^  prove  capable  or 
incapable  in  promoting  the  commercial  or 
industrial  interests  of  the  people. 

Formerly  the  state  was  only  known  through 
the  interference  of  the  army  with  the  interests 
of  industry  or  commerce.  Then  it  was  said 
"That  government  is  best  which  governs 
(interferes)  least."  Now  the  prevailing 
notion  of  the  government  is  the  promotion  of 
education,  of  sanitation,  of  industry,  railways, 
canals,  irrigation  ditches,  and  the  reclamation 
of  waste  lands. 

That  government  is  not  best  which  accom- 

[19] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

plishes  most  in  war  but  which  achieves  most 
for  the  regular  employment  of  labor,  the  de- 
velopment of  industries,  the  coming  and  the 
staying  of  prosperity.  Regarding  such  tasks, 
no  government  would  be  held  to  be  the  best 
that  would  do  the  least. 

Government  reform  which  seeks  to  save  the 
government  five  cents  on  the  one  hundred 
pounds  of  sugar  at  the  custom-house,  and  per- 
mits the  sugar  trust  to  continue  to  take  five 
cents  on  each  single  pound  of  sugar  used,  has 
not  reached  the  real  government  problem,  and 
will  not  until  it  reaches  the  plants  and  proc- 
esses by  which  sugar  is  made  and  carried  to 
the  consumer. 

Government  reform  which  seeks  to  prevent 
a  combination  of  great  corporations  but  per- 
mits the  corporations  to  control  the  industries 
on  behalf  of  the  holders  of  stocks,  both  un- 
earned and  water-logged,j  instead  of  in  the 
interest  of  the  tens  of  thousands  who  are  em- 
ployed in  such  industries  and  the  milhons  in 
related  industries,  all  of  whom  are  robbed  both 
in  the  making  of  the  goods  and  in  completing 
the  processes  of  production   in  the   markets 

[20] 


WHAT  MAY  THE  GOVERNMENT  DO? 

where  exchanges  are  made, — such  government 
reform  entirely  ignores  the  most  serious  tasks 
which  the  government  should  undertake. 

It  is  not  a  question  whether  the  government 
should  interfere  in  any  of  these  matters;  the 
principal  activities  of  the  government  are  now 
the  promotion  of  private  interests  in  these  very 
matters.  The  government  cannot  continue  to 
do  the  wrong  thing  under  the  pretense  that 
it  would  be  wrong  to  do  anything  at  all. 

Any  study  of  government,  or  of  proposals 
for  its  improvement,  must  not  ignore  this 
greatest  task  of  improving  the  government  of 
the  industries  where  the  millions  are  employed, 
where  laws  are  "boss-made"  laws  and,  when 
once  made,  are  ruthlessly  enforced  by  the 
courts  and  bayonets  of  the  government. 

It  is  said  the  government  exists  only  to  pro- 
tect, and  this  is  made  to  mean  the  protection 
of  private  interests  as  against  the  invasion  of 
others.  It  is  true  that  this  was  the  excuse  for 
the  existence  of  the  old  governments  which 
were  almost  entirely  military  organizations. 
When  they  had  impoverished  a  country  by  ex- 
acting support  for  their  armies,  they  explained 

[21] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

that  this  was  necessary  in  order  to  protect  the 
impoverished  people  from  having  some  other 
army  from  some  other  country  do  the  same 
thing. 

But  now  the  government  does  not  justify  its 
existence  on  the  score  of  limiting  its  activities 
to  keeping  the  other  armies  out  of  the  country. 
Its  claim  to  power  rests  on  its  ability  to  develop 
the  country.  It  irrigates  land.  The  water 
must  be  used  in  common.  The  government 
says  that  those  who  use  the  water  together 
ought  to  own  it  together  and  manage  it  to- 
gether. The  use  of  the  government  land  under 
the  government  ditch  can  be  obtained  on  no 
other  terms.  Water  power,  electric  lights, 
electric  roads,  cooperative  stores,  collective  sell- 
ing agencies  and  branch  railways  are  all  fol- 
lowing the  line  of  the  government's  irrigated 
land  policy. 

Modern  industry  has  filled  the  world  with 
industrial  equipments  which,  like  irrigation 
ditches,  must  be  used  collectively.  The  mod- 
ern state  provides  a  method  now  for  the  mis- 
government  of  the  great  collective  interests  of 
those  who  collectively  use  the  great  collective 
industries.    The  government  is  already  in  the 

[22] 


WHAT  MAY  THE  GOVERNMENT  DO? 

midst  of  these  responsibilities.  Its  principal 
duty  is  no  longer  that  of  protection  in  time  of 
war;  it  is  as  an  administrator  of  collective 
interests  in  time  of  peace  as  well  as  war. 

Under  what  limitations  shall  the  govern- 
ment be  placed? 

Personal  matters  become  matters  of  public 
concern  only  when  they  come  seriously  to  affect 
collective  interests.  Collective  interests  must 
be  governed  in  some  way.  The  government 
must  deal  with  all  such  matters.  It  does  so 
now.  If  the  collectivity  is  only  a  portion  of 
the  people  engaged  in  matters  which  do  not 
concern  the  rest,  then  let  them  alone.  It  is 
their  affair.  Let  them  collectively  govern  their 
collective  affairs  in  any  way  most  satisfactory 
to  those  who  are  in  that  collectivity,  but  that 
would  not  be  the  abandonment  of  government 
or  the  exclusion  of  government,  but  only  a 
method  of  government. 

In  the  same  way,  when  any  matter  seriously 
and  collectively  concerns  all  the  people,  no 
matter  what  the  nature  of  that  thing,  then  all 
the  people  must  in  some  way  assume  responsi- 
bility for  the  thing  which  so  concerns  them  all, 

[23] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

and  when  they  do  so,  that  too  is  government 
action,  not  of  a  different  kind,  but  only  on  a 
larger  scale.  In  either  case  it  is  government 
action  whether  the  immediate  agent  of  doing 
the  thing  agreed  to  be  done  is  a  soldier  or  a 
court  officer  or  a  bank  clerk  or  a  farmer  or  a 
miner  or  a  blacksmith. 

The  government  is  responsible  for  what  it 
does  and  for  what  it  permits  to  be  done  under 
its  protection.  The  only  limit  to  its  activities 
must  always  be  the  boundary  line  of  its 
responsibilities. 


[24] 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Forms  of  Government 

It  has  been  seen  that  majority  rule  alone  is 
just,  wise  and  capable. 

It  has  been  seen  that  governments  must  deal 
with  all  matters  of  collective  concern  and  that 
the  greatest  collective  interests  are  found  in 
the  industries. 

There  are  many  who  admit  the  wisdom  of 
self-government  in  governments  which  do  lit- 
tle, and,  therefore,  can  do  little  harm  even 
though  they  do  that  little  badly.  But  self- 
government  in  the  industries.  Majority  rule 
in  the  factories.  It  is  said  no  one  could  seri- 
ously propose  anything  of  the  sort. 

There  are  many  forms  of  government  but 
fundamentally  there  are  only  two  forms  of 
government  possible  in  factories  or  anywhere 
else.  It  has  been  seen  that  all  government 
authority  must  rest  with  the  majority  vote  or 

[25] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

on  special  privilege.  The  one  is  a  democracy 
and  the  other,  a  despotism. 

Mr.  Blackstone  in  his  "Commentaries  on 
English  Law,"  says  that  "a  law  is  a  rule  of 
action  prescribed  by  a  superior  for  the  govern- 
ment of  an  inferior,"  but  in  this  country,  and 
in  all  other  countries,  for  a  hundred  years  an- 
other conception  of  law  has  been  struggling 
for  a  hearing.  It  is  that  a  law  is  not  a  rule  pre- 
scribed by  an  admitted  superior  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  an  admitted  inferior.  It  is  that  "a 
law  is  a  mutual  agreement  between  those  who 
have  interests  in  common,  determining  what 
shall  be  done  with  regard  to  those  interests." 

The  claim  that  all  governments  derive  their 
just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed, 
that  is,  from  the  participation  of  the  governed 
in  the  government,  makes  a  law  under  such  a 
government  a  mutual  agreement  between  per- 
sons having  equal  rights  as  contracting  parties, 
not  a  command  from  a  master  to  a  servant. 

The  one  of  these  ideas  of  law  is  despotic ;  the 
other  is  democratic. 

Formerly,  and  ever  since  civilization  began, 
all  governments  were  despotic.    All  progress 

[26] 


THE  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT 

has  been  towards  democracy  and  away  from 
despotism.  Now  the  great  political  contro- 
versies are  everywhere  related  to  this  conflict 
between  despotism  and  democracy.  They  are 
fighting  each  other  to  the  death.  They  cannot 
both  be  victorious.  No  final  compromise  is 
possible. 

In  America,  democracy  has  won  a  limited 
victory  in  a  limited  notion  of  the  functions  of 
government,  but  in  America,  as  everywhere 
else  industrial  despotism  still  prevails. 

Get  clearly  in  mind  the  fundamental  differ- 
ences between  despotism  and  democracy.  It  is 
admitted  that  the  government  of  Russia  is 
despotic.  What  is  the  thing  which  is  in  Russia 
and  just,  because  that  thing  is  in  Russia,  Rus- 
sia must  be  a  despotism — a  thing  which,  were 
it  found  anywhere  else,  there  too  would  be  a 
despotism? 

It  is  this : — In  Russia  the  smallest  group  of 
people  having  interests  in  common  always  has 
its  chief  man  and  he  is  appointed  by  someone 
who  is  above  him,  who  is  appointed  by  someone 
who  is  above  him,  and  the  last  highest  appoint- 
ment in  this  series  of  appointments  is  made 

[27] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

by  the  Czar.  But  the  Czar  is  not  appointed 
at  all.  He  is  just  bom  to  the  supreme  mastery 
without  being  answerable  to  anyone  above  him. 
He  rules  by  appointment.  He  appoints  the 
man  next  below  himself,  who  appoints  the  man 
below  him,  until  the  last  lowest  in  this  series  of 
appointments  rules  those  who  are  at  the  bot- 
tom, and  those  at  the  bottom  are  never  ap- 
pointed at  all.  Just  as  the  Czar  was  born  to 
mastery  at  the  top,  so  they  were  born  to  servi- 
tude at  the  bottom. 

That  is  a  despotism.  A  despotism  rules  by 
appointment  from  the  top  down.  Under  a 
despotism  every  man  above  is  the  master  of  all 
the  men  below.  Under  a  despotism  all  the  men 
below  are  the  helpless  servants  of  all  the  men 
above.  Under  a  despotism  the  men  above  rule 
all  the  men  below  for  the  benefit  of  those  above 
and  to  the  injury  of  those  below.  Wherever 
this  is  done,  there  is  a  despotism. 

Under  a  democracy  all  this  is  reversed. 
Under  a  democracy  the  smallest  group  of  peo- 
ple having  interests  together  has  also  its  chief 
man,  but  he  is  elected  by  the  men  below  him. 
The  next  above  is  also  elected  by  those  below, 

[28] 


THE  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT 

until  the  last  man  above  has  been  elected  by 
all  below,  and  those  below  reserve  the  same 
power  to  take  one  down  when  they  do  not  want 
him  up,  as  they  had  to  put  hun  up  when  they 
wanted  him  there. 

A  despotism  rules  by  appointment  from  the 
top  down.  A  democracy  rules  by  election  from 
the  bottom  up.  Under  a  despotism  everyone 
below  is  the  helpless  servant,  ruled  and  robbed 
by  eveiyone  above.  Under  a  democracy  those 
below  are  neither  servants  nor  masters,  except 
as  they  are  masters  of  the  things  they  jointly 
use  or  jointly  do.  Under  a  despotism  everyone 
above  is  a  master  of  all  the  men  below,  fixed 
and  irremovable;  but  under  a  democrac}^  the 
men  above  are  not  masters  in  the  sense  that 
they  can  exploit  or  rob  or  abuse  those  who  are 
below,  nor  are  they  servants  in  the  sense  that 
they  cannot  escape  from  their  positions  of 
service.  They  are  the  voluntary  servants  of 
the  public  good.  They  can  quit  their  tasks  if 
they  do  not  like  them,  but  they  cannot  use  their 
positions  to  exploit,  nor  can  they  be  compelled 
as  public  servants  to  submit  to  extortion  or 
oppression  at  the  hands  of  others. 

Under  a  despotism  the  man  above  secures 

[29] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

appointment  because  he  will  serve  the  man 
above  himself  and  at  the  expense  of  all  below. 
But  under  a  democracy  the  man  above  comes 
to  his  place  by  promotion  as  a  mark  of  confi- 
dence, as  a  reward  of  merit,  and  under  condi- 
tions imder  which  he  can  hold  his  place  only 
so  long  as  he  proves  himself  continually  worthy 
of  that  confidence  of  those  below  which  was  in 
the  first  place  the  cause  of  his  promotion. 

Under  a  despotism  the  greatest  man  of  all  is 
the  greatest  master  of  all ;  but  under  a  democ- 
racy the  ideal  greatness  of  the  Nazarene  will 
at  last  be  reahzed.  Then  the  greatest  of  all 
will  be  the  free,  glad  "servant  of  all."  He  will 
be  the  greatest  of  all  because  he  will  have  ren- 
dered the  greatest  service  of  all  and  unto  all. 

It  is  under  this  system  of  rule  by  appoint- 
ment from  the  top  down  that  the  Czar  rules 
Russia.  It  is  that  which  makes  Russia  a  des- 
potism. It  is  by  this  same  system  of  rule  by 
appointment  from  the  top  down,  that  the 
mines,  railways,  and  all  the  great  monopohzed 
industries  are  ruled,  not  only  in  Russia  but 
everywhere  else  on  all  the  earth.  These  are 
industrial  despotisms.  Here,  as  in  Russia,  the 

[30] 


THE  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT 

collective  interests  of  all  are  sacrificed  to  the 
personal  advantage  of  the  masters  who  rule,  by 
appointment,  for  the  benefit  of  those  above  and 
to  the  injury  of  those  below. 

Shall  we  say  that  in  this  country  we  have  a 
politician's  democracy  and  a  workingman's  des- 
potism? It  is  explained  that  the  Czar  is  born 
to  his  place  of  mastery,  while  the  American 
industrial  master  achieves  his  place  of  power. 

The  first  of  the  Czars  achieved  his  place  of 
mastery.  Only  figureheads  among  the  Czars 
come  to  their  places  by  the  accident  of  birth. 
So,  in  this  country,  the  first  of  the  millionaires, 
in  any  family  of  millionaires,  comes  to  his  place 
of  power  by  achievement.  The  figureheads 
among  the  millionaires  who  follow  them  also 
inherit  industrial  mastery.  The  few  are  bom 
to  industrial  mastery.  That  means  that  the 
many  are  born  to  industrial  servitude.  All 
crowns  are  valuable  only  because  of  the  mas- 
tery which  they  give,  and  this  is  as  true  of  the 
crowns  carried  in  the  pockets  of  the  million- 
aires as  of  the  crowns  on  the  heads  of  kings 
and  kaisers. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  essence  of  tyranny 
is  in  the  power  to  make  both  sides  of  a  bargain. 

[31] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

In  all  the  great  industries  of  America,  the 
speculators,  masters  by  inheritance  or  by  fraud, 
are  struggling,  with  all  the  power  their  des- 
potic organizations  of  industry  have  jgiven 
them,  to  make  both  sides  of  every  bargain. 

Under  American  political  democracy,  the 
worker  may  vote  once  in  four  years,  but  under 
American  industrial  despotism,  the  worker  has 
no  vote  through  all  the  years  of  his  voiceless 
service. 

The  political  democracy  with  its  headquar- 
ters at  Washington  maintains  the  post-office 
and  the  army  and  navy.  It  does  a  few  other 
things.  It  is  all  the  time  doing  more  things. 
Industrial  despotism  with  its  headquarters  in 
New  York  and  its  branches  everywhere  con- 
trols all  the  great  monopolized  industries  in 
which  the  millions  are  employed.  The  indus- 
tries not  so  monopolized  depend  for  services, 
in  such  a  way,  on  the  industries  which  are 
monopolized  that  these  central  industrial  mon- 
opolies can,  and  do,  fix  the  prices  on  all  the 
products  of  labor. 

They  fix  the  price  of  labor  for  all  the  mil- 
lions employed  by  these  monopolized  indus- 

[  32  ] 


THE  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT 

tries  and  the  price  on  all  products  and  services 
in  all  industries  not  so  monopolized.  It  is  in 
this  way  that  the  whole  industrial  and  commer- 
cial life  of  America  falls  under  the  control, 
that  is,  under  the  government,  of  industrial 
despotism. 

It  is  because  the  industrial  monopolies  can 
fix  the  price  which  the  worker  gets,  in  the  proc- 
ess of  production,  and  can  also  fix  the  price 
which  the  worker  pays  in  purchasing  back  his 
own  products  from  the  markets  that  the  mas- 
ters of  these  industrial  monoplies  are  able  to 
have  unearned  millions  in  their  hands  and 
leave  both  penniless  and  helpless  the  workers 
by  whose  industry  alone  these  millions  are 
created. 

It  is  because  of  this  power  of  the  industrial 
monopolies  to  control  both  ends  of  the  proc- 
esses of  making  and  of  exchanging  products 
that  so  frequently  an  advance  in  nominal 
wages  at  the  one  end  of  the  transaction,  fol- 
lowed by  an  advance  in  the  cost  of  living  at  the 
other  end,  makes  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
wages  nominally  increased,  really  less  than  be- 
fore the  advance  was  made.  It  is  this  ability 
to  make  both  sides  of  the  bargain  which  makes 

[33] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

the  tyranny  of  industrial  despotism  complete 
and  unendurable. 

Lincoln  said,  "This  country  cannot  long  en- 
dure part  slave  territory  and  part  free  soil." 
So  may  it  be  said  that  this  country  cannot  long 
endure  a  political  democracy  and  an  industrial 
despotism,  both  at  the  same  time.  Either  the 
democracy  which  the  people  have  sought  for, 
cherished  and  defended  will  be  extended  to  all 
collective  interests,  including  the  things  which 
the  people  use  together  in  the  earning  of  a 
living, — either  that,  or  else  industrial  despotism 
will  continue  to  extend  its  power  until  "all  of 
liberty  is  lost." 

It  is  frequently  admitted  that  ultimately 
either  Washington  must  give  orders  to  Wall 
Street  or  Wall  Street  will  give  orders  to  Wash- 
ington. In  fact,  it  is  more  than  intimated  that 
Wall  Street  is  already  the  master  of  all  the 
departments  and  services  of  the  government 
at  Washington,  and  even  now  uses  these  gov- 
ernment powers  to  further  the  interests  of  this 
industrial  despotism. 

Even  when  this  admission  is  made,  it  is  still 
asserted  that,  bad  as  this  is,  industrial  democ- 

[84] 


THE  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT 

racy  would  be  even  worse ;  and  having  assumed 
this  without  giving  any  reason,  it  is  at  once 
affirmed  that  the  advocates  of  industrial  de- 
mocracy are  "anarchists,"  "traitors,"  "men  de- 
void of  patriotism,"  "mischief  makers," 
"enemies  of  the  flag"  and  "unfit  for  citizen- 
ship." And  this  is  the  industrial  despot's  only 
answer  to  democracy.  It  is  a  deliberate  effort 
to  create  needless  social  hysteria  and  to  win  a 
bad  case  by  a  persistent  use  of  invective  and 
of  personal  bitterness.  How  groundless  are 
these  fears  of  social  disaster  under  industrial 
democracy  will  be  shown  in  the  following 
chapter. 


[36] 


CHAPTER  IV 

Industrial  Democracy 

If  industrial  democracy  really  is  to  injure 
society,  as  claimed  above,  it  must  do  so  in  some 
one  of  several  ways. 

If  it  would  make  the  products  of  labor  less 
or  the  goods  produced  of  inferior  quality,  that 
would  be  a  misfortune.  If  it  would  lower  the 
levels  of  physical  strength  or  mental  power 
among  the  people,  and  so  lead  to  race  degen- 
eracy, that  would  be  a  misfortune.  If  it  would 
corrupt  the  state  and  so  bring  on  political  con- 
ditions more  unendurable  than  those  which 
even  now  are  not  to  be  endured,  that  would  be 
a  misfortune. 

If  industrial  democracy  could  injure  society 
in  none  of  these  ways,  even  the  most  fright- 
ened imagination  among  all  the  defenders  of 
the  industrial  despots  would  be  unable  to  dis- 
cover any  other  way  by  which  harm  would 
come  to  society  through  making  an  end  of 

[36] 


INDUSTRIAL  DEMOCRACY 

industrial  despotism  and  a  beginning  of  indus- 
trial democracy. 

Let  us  soberly  consider  how  groundless  are 
these  fears. 

First.  Will  the  coming  of  industrial  democ- 
racy make  the  products  of  labor  less? 

Now,  millions  of  men  and  women  are  irregu- 
larly employed  or  are  altogether  unemployed, 
and  the  industrial  despots  cannot  employ  them. 
The  industrial  despots  cannot  employ  them  be- 
cause they  cannot  secure  a  stable,  constant, 
sufficient  market  in  which  to  sell  the  products. 
They  cannot  sell  the  products  because  the 
workers  cannot  buy  with  their  wages  what  they 
can  produce  with  their  labor. 

This  is  true  because  private  monopolies  pri- 
vately appropriate  ground  rents,  privately  en- 
force and  appropriate  extortionate  charges  for 
the  private  use  of  the  public  credit  and  pri- 
vately fix  and  privately  appropriate  enormous 
sums  in  profits  or  dividends  for  which  there  is 
given  in  return  not  even  a  pretense  of  service. 

Industrial  democracy  cannot  possibly  be  es- 
tablished while  these  private  monopolies  re- 
main.   When  the  government,  acting  in  behalf 

[37] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

of  all,  appropriates  ground  rents  which  are  the 
gift  of  nature  or  the  product  of  the  whole  body 
of  society,  when  the  government,  acting  in  be- 
half of  all,  provides  for  the  private  use  of  all 
public  credit  at  the  cost  of  keeping  the  ac- 
counts and  making  good  the  losses,  when  the 
government,  acting  in  behalf  of  all,  takes  over 
the  great  industrial  monopolies  and  makes  an 
end  of  unearned  dividends,  then  the  only  re- 
maining claimant  against  the  products  of  labor 
will  be  labor  itself.  Then  wages  must  rise  and 
prices  fall  until  labor  can  buy  its  own  total 
product. 

Hence,  industrial  democracy  will  at  once 
make  one's  power  in  the  purchase  of  products 
balance  against  his  power  to  produce.  That 
will  make  a  never-failing  market.  Then  all 
labor  can  be  regularly  employed.  That  will 
make  a  larger  product  for  a  larger  market. 

Now  most  labor  is  unskilled  labor.  No  man- 
ufacturer will  share  the  secrets  of  his  trade. 
No  worker  wants  to  multiply  the  competitors 
for  his  job.  Industrial  democracy  will  change 
all  this.  The  skill,  the  secrets,  the  tricks  and 
knacks  of  effective  production,  when  made 

[38] 


INDUSTRIAL  DEMOCRACY 

available  for  all,  will  increase  the  products  of 
all,  not  with  resulting  loss  of  employment  or  of 
threatened  bankruptcy  for  any,  but  with  in- 
creasing prosperity  for  all.  All  labor  will  tend 
strongly  to  become  skilled  labor.  Skilled  labor 
produces  more  than  unskilled  labor,  and  that 
will  make  a  larger  product. 

This  is  the  age  of  machinery.  The  best 
equipped  labor  can  produce  all  the  way  from 
three  to  one  hundred  times  as  much  now  as  the 
same  labor  could  have  produced  a  hundred 
years  ago,  still,  most  labor  works  with  inferior 
equipments.  Industrial  democracy  will  not 
only  give  regular  employment  and  skilled 
labor,  but  the  most  effective  equipment  will  be 
within  the  reach  of  all.  That  will  increase  the 
product. 

But  managerial  ability — what  of  that?  The 
man  of  unusual  capacity — what  chance  will  he 
have  to  win  and  to  hold  the  place  of  first  im- 
portance in  the  processes  of  production?  For 
that,  it  is  said,  is  necessary  to  a  large  product. 

The  final  authority  under  industrial  monop- 
oly is  now  vested  in  the  stockholder.   As  indus- 

[39] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

trial  monopolies  develop,  the  stockholder  is 
more  and  more  absent  from  the  actual  work 
and  ignorant  of  its  processes.  He  can  judge 
of  the  capacity  of  the  hired  boss  only  by  his 
dividends  or  his  lack  of  dividends. 

Now  the  usual  wage  worker  cannot  live  at 
all  except  he  works  as  the  hired  servant  of  a 
hired  boss.  The  hired  boss  cannot  hold  his 
job  as  boss  unless  he  works  his  men  harder  and 
faster,  gets  more  out  of  them,  and  gives  them 
less  for  it  than  could  any  other  man,  had  he 
his  place. 

It  would  seem  at  first  thought  that  under 
such  conditions  the  largest  product  would  re- 
sult, but  it  has  been  demonstrated  in  a  thou- 
sand ways  that  this  is  not  the  case.  Employ- 
ment, under  such  conditions,  is  very  much  like 
slavery,  and  slavery  has  been  proven  to  be  the 
most  wasteful  of  all  forms  of  labor.  Adam 
Smith  said  it  was  never  really  profitable. 

Under  present  conditions  of  industrial  des- 
potism the  worker  is  employed  under  a  sys- 
tem which  exhausts  his  life's  productive  capac- 
ity in  the  briefest  possible  period  and  drives 
him  to  an  early  death  or  to  long  years  of  piti- 
able and  unproductive  existence.    Such  man- 

[40] 


INDUSTRIAL  DEMOCRACY 

agement  guarantees  the  graft  of  the  private 
monopoh'es,  but  it  decreases  the  amount  of  the 
possible  product  of  any  particular  worker  be- 
cause it  shortens  the  years  of  effective  service, 
adds  to  the  irregularity  of  employment,  and 
can  secure  from  such  services  only  what  can 
be  secured  under  compulsion.  Long  years  of 
service,  regular  employment,  a  personal  inter- 
est in  the  products  on  the  part  of  the  worker, 
would  increase  the  products  and  all  of  these  are 
made  certain  by  industrial  democracy. 

But  industrial  democracy  will  not  displace 
the  most  capable  man  in  the  place  of  the  most 
importance.  It  offers  a  different  and  a  better 
way  of  finding  the  most  capable  man.  The 
workers  in  the  industry  would  be  consulted. 
The  manager  would  not  be  appointed  by  an 
absent  and  ignorant  despot.  All  the  workers 
on  the  job  would  be  benefited  by  the  most  effi- 
cient management.  They  would  be  interested 
because  they  would  be  benefited  in  discovering 
and  promoting  the  most  efficient  organizer,  not 
the  most  brutal  boss. 

In  this  way  the  final  authority  will  be  in  the 
man  most  highly  skilled  and  most  vitally  inter- 
ested, not  in  an  unskilled  absentee  whose  main 

[41] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

task  in  life  is,  not  to  render  service,  but  to 
select  those  who,  as  his  personal  servants,  will 
wear  out  and  waste  the  life  services  of  the 
others. 

Industrial  despotism,  hke  all  other  despo- 
tisms, fixes  final  mastery  by  the  accident  of 
birth,  picks  out  the  principal  men  before  they 
are  born.  Industrial  democracy,  like  all  other 
democracies,  picks  out  its  principal  men  after 
they  are  born,  and  does  not  need  to  wait  for 
them  to  die  in  order  to  escape  from  an  unfor- 
tunate choice  of  servants,  not  masters.  Indus- 
trial democracy  not  only  provides  for  the  most 
capable  man  in  the  most  important  place,  but 
it  has  a  better  way  of  finding  him  out  and  for 
keeping  him  always  in  the  place  where  he  can 
render  the  best  services. 

The  Ford  Automobile  Company,  by  increas- 
ing wages  and  sharing  profits  both  with  pro- 
ducers and  consumers,  increased  its  shop  ef- 
ficiency by  thirty  per  cent  in  a  single  year. 
Profit  sharing  has  everywhere  increased  ef- 
ficiency. When  profits  are  no  longer  shared 
with  those  who  render  no  share  of  the  service 
of  production,  and  the  total  product  goes  to 
the  producer,  then  every  motive  will  operate 

[42] 


INDUSTRIAL  DEMOCRACY 

towards  eiRciency  and  a  better,  not  an  inferior, 
management  will  result. 

With  better  management,  skilled  labor,  the 
best  possible  equipment,  and  continuous  em- 
ployment for  all,  there  will  be  a  larger  product. 

As  to  the  quality  of  the  goods,  it  may  be 
said  that  shoddy,  adulteration,  and  every  other 
form  of  industrial  fraud  is  now  possible  be- 
cause the  men  who  produce  these  things  are 
under  the  management  of  men  who  do  not 
themselves  expect  to  use  the  particular  things 
produced.  If  the  workers  were  themselves  the 
managers  of  production  as  well  as  the  users 
of  the  things  produced,  fraud  would  at  once  be 
ruled  out.  No  one  makes  raspberry  jam  out  of 
millet  seed  and  stock-yards  refuse  for  home 
consumption. 

Because  of  these  considerations,  it  is  seen 
that  industrial  democracy  would  mean  both  a 
larger  and  a  better  product. 

Second.  Will  industrial  democracy  tend 
towards  race  degeneracy? 

Under  industrial  despotism,  the  first  claim 
on  all  the  industry  of  the  race  is  to  provide 

[43] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

rents,  dividends  and  interest  payments  for  the 
industrial  despots.  Under  industrial  democ- 
racy normal  human  needs  and  desires  can  again 
assert  themselves,  and  then  the  first  claims  on 
all  industry  will  speedily  become  the  highest 
interests  of  the  whole  race  life ;  and  these  high- 
est interests  are  forever  dependent  on  wife- 
hood, motherhood  and  childhood.  That  would 
not  tend  towards  race  degeneracy. 

With  the  workers  made  the  masters  of  their 
own  employment  because  of  the  regular  and 
profitable  employment  of  the  natural  bread 
winners,  child  labor  would  cease  at  once,  for 
the  reason  that  that  would  leave  the  further 
exploitation  of  childhood  entirely  without  ex- 
cuse. The  two  millions  of  American  children 
who  are  now  bearing  the  burdens  and  responsi- 
bilities of  grown-up  people  would  go  back  to 
the  school,  to  the  playground,  and  to  the  fire- 
side.   That  would  not  tend  to  race  degeneracy. 

With  the  workers  the  masters  of  their  own 
industries  under  industrial  democracy,  the  un- 
employed and  the  irregularly  employed  would 
be  saved  from  the  demoralization  incident  to 
the  self -destroying  periods  of  enforced  idleness 
when  hope  dies  and  vice  and  crime  so  easily 

[44] 


INDUSTRIAL  DEMOCRACY 

follow  in  the  footsteps  of  despair.  That  would 
not  tend  to  race  degeneracy. 

General  Gorgas  says  that  the  best  possible 
sanitary  measure  this  country  could  adopt 
would  be  to  double  the  wages  of  all  the  work- 
ers. That  would  still  be  less  than  giving  them 
all  that  they  would  be  able  to  produce  with  all 
the  time  employment,  scientific  management 
and  the  best  possible  equipment.  Tuberculosis, 
typhoid,  diphtheria  and  all  the  other  infectious 
and  most  destructive  diseases  are  the  especial 
enemies  of  the  poor.  Low  vitality,  because  of 
hunger  and  exposure,  makes  them  easy  victims 
of  these  destroyers.  A  rational  opportunity  to 
live,  which  democratic  management  of  industry 
would  speedily  secure  for  all,  would  make  an 
end  of  these  destroyers.  That  would  not  tend 
to  race  degeneracy. 

The  improvement  of  the  equipments,  the 
making  of  all  labor  skilled  labor,  and  that  labor 
regularly  employed,  would  make  possible  the 
shortening  of  the  hours  of  labor  and  the  length- 
ening of  the  hours  of  leisure.  Wherever  that 
has  happened,  it  has  led  to  the  spending  of 
more  money  for  books  and  less  for  beer.  That 
does  not  tend  to  race  degeneracy. 

[45] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

For  the  same  reasons,  under  industrial  de- 
mocracy the  mother  could  go  back  to  her  family 
and  the  father  could  become  again  the  play- 
mate of  his  children.  That  would  not  tend  to 
race  degeneracy. 

Increasing  idiocy,  insanity  and  crime  can  be 
accounted  for  only  by  the  conditions  of  anxi- 
ety, exposure  and  disease  especially  incidental 
to  the  killing  pace  and  the  cruel  burdens  inci- 
dent to  industrial  despotism.  To  restore  nor- 
mal industrial  conditions,  as  would  be  done 
under  industrial  democracy,  will  do  more  than 
all  else  to  restore  the  social  conditions  under 
which  the  fruits  of  the  tree  of  life  would  no 
longer  be  found  in  increasing  numbers  in  the 
feeble-minded,  the  vicious,  the  criminal,  and  the 
insane.  That  would  not  tend  to  race  degen- 
eracy. 

The  school,  the  church,  the  family — these 
are  the  great  social  agencies  for  human  bet- 
terment. Under  industrial  democracy,  the  time 
for  the  just  demands  of  these  institutions, 
the  funds  for  their  support,  and  the  strength 
of  body  and  the  peace  of  mind  which  makes 
possible  and  profitable  study,  worship,  love 
— all  these  will  be  at  last  within  the  reach 

[46] 


INDUSTRIAL  DEMOCRACY 

of  all.     That  will  not  tend  to  race  degen- 
eracy. 

Industrial  democracy  will  produce  more 
goods  and  better  goods.  It  will  also  produce 
stronger  people,  wiser  people  and  better  peo- 
ple. It  will  deliver  mankind  from  race  degen- 
eracy and  will  start  anew  the  processes  of  the 
evolutionary  perfection  of  the  human  race. 

Third.  It  only  remains  to  ask,  "Will  indus- 
trial democracy  corrupt  the  state  ?" 

The  government  is  now  corrupt,  but  not  be- 
cause the  people  are  bad.  Even  bad  people 
want  others  to  behave  themselves.  The  demo- 
cratic and  republican  parties  have  not  cor- 
rupted the  government.  These  parties,  like  the 
general  government  and  the  great  municipali- 
ties, are  not  the  authors  of  corruption.  Polit- 
ical parties,  both  in  and  out  of  office  are  cor- 
rupt, when  they  are  corrupt,  because  there  are 
certain  great  private  interests  which  must  exist 
under  industrial  despotism,  and  which  profit 
most  when  the  government  is  most  corrupt. 

These  are  the  private  interests  of  the  indus- 
trial monopolies,  the  professional  politicians, 
and  the  purchasable  voters. 

[47] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

The  industrial  monopolies  could  not  use  the 
public  power  as  they  do,  did  they  depend  on 
intelligent  public  majorities  for  their  ability  to 
do  so.  They  can  secure  and  keep  control  of 
these  public  powers  only  by  the  misuse  of  polit- 
ical parties,  and  they  are  able  to  do  this  because 
of  their  power,  by  the  use  of  money,  to  make 
or  break  the  men  temporarily  in  control  of 
political  organizations. 

The  only  method  by  which  they  can  secure 
their  own  interests  is  by  political  corruption. 
Hence,  they  are  ceaseless  workers  in  political 
practices  necessarily  corrupt. 

Why  do  some  men  sell  their  votes?  There 
are  several  reasons.  Sometimes  it  is  because 
these  votes  are  the  only  things  they  have  to  sell 
which  are  marketable.  Sometimes  it  is  because 
when  they  sell  their  votes  and  make  the  deliv- 
eries, they  don't  miss  anything  which  they  had 
before.  But  it  is  always  true  that  they  sell 
their  votes  because  the  private  owners  of  the 
great  industrial  monopolies  are  ever  ready  and 
able  to  make  the  purchase. 

These  purchasable  voters  are  almost  entirely 
made  by  the  misfortunes  incidental  to  indus- 
trial despotism.     The  industrial  despots  use 

[48] 


INDUSTRIAL  DEMOCRACY 

those  whom  they  have  already  ruined  to  keep 
the  power  to  ruin  others. 

A  learned  profession  may  be  said  to  be  a 
calling  in  which  one  can  make  his  living  espe- 
cially because  of  what  he  knows.  The  things 
the  professional  politician  must  especially  know 
are  how  to  reach  the  boodling  industrial  despot 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  purchasable  voter  on 
the  other.  Then  he  collects  the  boodle  from 
the  one  with  which  to  buy  the  vote  of  the  other 
and,  using  this  vote  as  a  balance  of  power  be- 
tween the  votes  of  decent  and  honest  men  of  all 
parties,  he  makes  out  of  this  combination  of 
the  richest  and  the  most  disreputable,  the  most 
powerful  factor  in  modem  politics. 

So  long  as  industrial  despotism  remains,  it  is 
impossible  to  devise  any  means  of  escape  from 
this  combination  of  vicious  and  anti-social  inter- 
ests and  the  resulting  misuse  of  public  power. 

But  if  the  private  ownership  of  the  great 
monopolies  was  abolished,  and  the  workingmen 
were  to  vote  within  the  industries  in  which  they 
are  employed  and  so  become  the  masters  of 
these  industries,  as  they  would  do  under  indus- 
trial democracy,  then  there  would  remain  no 

[49] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

private  interests  within  the  industries  which 
could  be  opposed  to  the  common  good. 

The  boodler's  barrel  would  disappear  along 
with  the  industrial  despot's  loss  of  power. 
There  would  be  no  despots  under  industrial  de- 
mocracy to  buy  franchises  or  to  monopolize  and 
abuse  industrial  opportunities.  Public  fran- 
chises would  not  be  for  sale  at  any  price  and 
industrial  opportunities  would  be  provided  for 
all  on  equal  terms.  There  would  be  no  pur- 
chasable vote  under  industrial  democracy. 

The  men  whose  votes  are  bought  are  at  the 
bottom  of  the  human  scale.  Now  they  are  able 
to  live  as  idlers  because  beggary  and  theft  are 
inseparable  from  industrial  despotism.  They 
tell  one  they  are  hungry  and  without  work. 
They  are  given  bread  by  those  who  cannot  give 
them  work.  When  work  is  always  within  the 
reach  of  all  workers,  then  such  men  will  go 
hungry  or  they  will  go  to  work.  If  they  go 
hungry,  they  will  not  last  long,  after  which 
they  will  cease  from  troubling.  If  they  go  to 
work,  they  will  vote  in  the  industry  in  which 
they  are  employed  and  about  the  things  which 
they  help  to  do.  Then  they  will  have  some- 
thing besides  their  votes  which  will  be  market- 

[60] 


INDUSTRIAL  DEMOCRACY 

able.  Then  they  will  miss  something  should 
they  sell  their  votes.  Then  their  votes  will  be 
directly  related  to  the  things  which  they,  them- 
selves, would  be  engaged  in  doing.  Then  they 
cannot  vote  burdens  upon  others  which  will  not 
fall  upon  themselves.  Then  they  cannot  vote 
to  give  away  what  is  not  their  own,  or  what 
concerns  them  only  in  some  remote  and  uncer- 
tain way.  Then  they  will  vote  about  their  own 
affairs,  and  they  will  know  about  what  they 
vote  about.  Therefore  they  cannot  be  misled. 
They  will  be  personally  and  vitally  interested 
in  the  result.  Hence,  they  cannot  be  bought. 
No  private  interest  would  remain  which 
could  afford  to  pay  them  what  their  votes 
would  be  worth  to  them  in  their  own  busi- 
ness. 

The  purchasable  vote  and  the  boodler's  bar- 
rel both  go  with  the  coming  of  industrial  democ- 
racy. After  their  departure,  the  professional 
politician  becomes  an  impossibility.  Political 
corruption  is  alone  possible  because  of  the  in- 
dustrial despot.  The  political  boss  and  the 
purchasable  vote  must  go  also  with  the  going 
of  industrial  despotism  and  the  coming  of  in- 
dustrial democracy. 

[51] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

And  so,  again,  industrial  democracy,  instead 
of  threatening  to  corrupt  the  government, 
proves  to  be,  on  examination,  the  only  means  of 
escape  from  the  corruption  which  has  befallen 
the  government  under  industrial  despotism  and 
which  must  last  as  long  as  industrial  despotism 
lasts. 

The  machinery  of  self-government,  if  it  is 
to  be  effective  anywhere,  must  be  constructed 
so  as  to  be  available  wherever  collective  inter- 
ests are  found.  To  consent  to  a  pretense  of 
democracy  under  forms  of  organization  under 
which  real  democracy  is  impossible  is  an  old 
trick  of  the  beaten  despots.  Collective  inter- 
ests are  not  only  found  in  the  industries,  but 
the  greatest  collective  interests  of  all  are  in 
these  industries.  A  scheme  of  self-government 
which  still  makes  self-governing  industries  im- 
possible and  leaves  the  millions  who  vote,  de- 
pendent for  their  existence  on  the  wishes  of 
great  private  monopolies,  will  not  avail  in  the 
struggle  for  world-wide  mastery  between  des- 
potism and  democracy. 

Political  democracy  cannot  endure  if  it  rests 
on  an  economic  foundation  of  industrial  des- 
potism.    Industrial   democracy,   once   estab- 

[52] 


INDUSTRIAL  DEMOCRACY 

lisbed,  democracy  must  and  will  become  at  once 
triumphant  in  every  other  department  of 
human  interest  and  endeavor,  for  the  reason 
that  when  despotism  can  no  longer  threaten  the 
means  by  which  the  millions  live,  no  other  mo- 
tive can  be  found  strong  enough  and  vile 
enough  to  make  possible  any  longer,  anywhere, 
the  infamous  relationship  of  mastery  and  servi- 
tude. 


[53] 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Elective  Franchise 

The  vote  is  the  means  by  which  a  member  of 
any  group  gives  expression  to  his  wishes  con- 
cerning its  collective  affairs.  The  right  to  be 
heard  in  such  a  way  is  called  the  elective  fran- 
chise. 

The  right  to  vote  is  much  older  than  the  be- 
ginnings of  written  human  history.  It  has  been 
seen  that  imder  the  earliest  forms  of  society 
the  tribesmen  not  only  acted  together  by  com- 
mon consent,  but  the  questions  of  dispute  were 
so  simple  and  the  interests  of  each  so  per- 
fectly evident  that  the  tribal  groups  were  able 
to  determine  the  simple  questions  arising 
among  them  by  unanimous  agreement.  Under 
such  conditions  no  one  was  asked  to  help  to  do 
that  which  he  did  not  personally  feel  to  be  the 
wisest  thing  to  be  done.  The  unanimous  agree- 
ment required  in  a  modern  trial  by  jury  is  a 
survival  of  this  ancient  usage. 

[54] 


THE  ELECTIVE  FRANCHISE 

In  the  barbarian  village  communities  which 
were  everywhere  in  existence  in  the  last  days 
of  barbarism  this  democracy  was  everywhere 
present.  There  were  few  things  to  be  decided, 
and  no  decision  was  arrived  at  except  by  unani- 
mous agreement. 

When  to  the  simple  occupations  of  the  earlier 
barbarism  was  added  worldwide  military  ad- 
venture, unanimous  agreement  in  the  choice  of 
commanders  and  in  making  decisions  as  to  the 
policy  to  be  adopted  for  the  battle,  immediately 
at  hand,  became  impossible.  Thus  majority 
rule  succeeded  unanimous  consent  because  of 
the  exigencies  arising  out  of  military  neces- 
sity. 

The  conquered  tribes  v/ere  enslaved,  and  so 
lost  all  voice  in  the  management  of  their  own 
affairs.  The  conquering  tribes  continued  dem- 
ocratic self-government  as  to  their  own  affairs 
for  many  centuries. 

The  elections  reported  in  the  writings  of 
Moses  concerning  important  matters  in  the  rise 
of  the  Jewish  nation,  the  elections  among  the 
Greek  tribes  and  later  in  the  Greek  cities,  and 
the  elections  among  the  Romans,  are  all  in- 

[55] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

stances  of  the  survival  of  an  elective  franchise, 
not  established  as  a  modern  achievement  but 
inherited  as  one  of  the  most  ancient  usages  of 
human  society. 

In  some  of  the  Swiss  Cantons  elections  are 
still  held  by  all  the  people  gathering  on  a  day 
which  is  made  a  holiday,  a  day  of  feasting,  and 
of  sports,  and  the  decisions  are  taken  by  gath- 
ering into  opposite  groups,  those  on  the  oppos- 
ing sides  of  the  proposal  submitted.  This  is 
not  only  a  survival  of  a  usage  so  ancient  that 
the  memory  of  man  "runneth  not  to  the  con- 
trary," but  it  is  a  survival  of  the  very  forms 
of  the  more  ancient  elections. 

The  despotic  form  of  government,  as  op- 
posed to  democracy,  found  its  beginning  v/hen 
the  war  chief  of  some  ancient  tribe  refused 
longer  to  submit  to  the  elections  of  his  tribes- 
men, and  so  carried  into  his  own  tribe  the  mili- 
tary forms  of  administration  which  had  been 
established  by  him  over  the  peoples  in  con- 
quered districts.  All  the  contests  of  modem 
liistory,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  the  rise  of 
free  institutions,  have  been  efforts  to  capture 
back  from  military  masters  this  elective  fran- 

[56] 


THE  ELECTIVE  FRANCHISE 
chise  .which  mihtary  mastery  had  taken  away. 

Self-government  in  the  free  cities  of  medi- 
eval Europe,  self-government  in  the  American 
republics,  the  struggle  for  self-government  in 
all  the  outlying  colonies  of  all  races  and  nations 
are  only  instances  in  this  effort  to  recover  this 
most  rational  right  of  all,  the  right  for  all  to 
be  heard  on  those  matters  which  are  the  con- 
cern of  all. 

The  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
a  period  of  most  marvelous  advance  among 
English  speaking  people  in  the  extension  of  the 
elective  franchise. 

In  the  United  States  only  a  small  percentage 
of  the  people  were  voters  at  the  beginning  of 
the  last  century.  Woodrow  Wilson,  in  his 
"History  of  the  American  People,"  says, 
"There  were  probably  not  more  than  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  men  who  had  the 
right  to  vote  out  of  all  the  four  million  inhabi- 
tants enumerated  at  the  first  census  (1790)." 
All  sorts  of  limitations  were  placed  upon  the 
franchise.  Voters  were  required  to  be  mem- 
bers of  a  particular  church,  to  be  long-time 
residents  in  a  particular  neighborhood,  to  be 

[57] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

owners  of  a  particular  kind  of  property,  or 
they  were  voiceless  in  all  matters,  no  matter 
how  vitally  they  might  concern  them. 

The  earliest  advance  of  the  elective  fran- 
chise in  America  was  secured  by  those  who 
passed  beyond  the  Alleghenies  and  established 
new  states  in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  Here 
they  assumed  universal  suffrage  and,  just  be- 
cause every  man  was  possessed  of  his  own  rifle, 
he  insisted  upon  the  right  to  vote.  As  new 
states  were  added  in  the  West,  the  older  states 
fell  under  the  western  influence  and  gradually 
the  principle  of  manhood  suffrage  has  been 
quite  generally  admitted  in  America. 

In  all  English  colonies,  the  suffrage  is  much 
more  advanced,  better  safeguarded  and  ap- 
proaches more  nearly  to  the  ideals  of  manhood 
suffrage  than  in  the  mother  country,  where 
plural  voting  still  prevails,  that  is,  as  many 
votes  for  each  man  as  he  owns  pieces  of  prop- 
erty in  the  different  election  districts. 

In  Great  Britain,  at  this  time,  nearly  one- 
half  of  all  her  native-born  male  citizens  who  are 
twenty-one  years  of  age,  are  not  permitted  to 
participate  in  the  elections.  Both  in  Great 
[58] 


THE  ELECTIVE  FRANCHISE 

Britain  and  in  all  other  English  speaking  coun- 
tries, with  but  few  exceptions  and  in  the  most 
limited  manner,  all  women  are  forbidden  to 
vote. 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  only  reason 
why  any  one  votes,  or  should  vote,  is  because 
those  who  vote  together  have  interests  of  some 
sort  which  affect  them  together.  So  long  as  a 
woman  is  seriously  concerned  in  the  laws  of  the 
country  and  is  vitally  affected  by  all  the  acts 
of  the  government,  it  is  impossible  to  discover 
any  rational  ground  why  she  should  be  refused 
the  opportunity  to  be  heard  in  matters  which  so 
directly  concern  her. 

That  woman  is  not  permitted  to  vote  is  not 
the  result  of  a  deliberate  purpose.  It  is,  in- 
stead, an  inheritance  from  the  time  when  all 
governments  were  military  in  their  character, 
when  voters  were  fighters  and  the  things  they 
voted  about  were  the  things  they  were  fighting 
about.  Woman  was  not  present  as  a  soldier. 
She  was  not  directly  a  factor  in  the  fighting  and 
accordingly  had  no  share  in  the  voting.  As  it 
has  been  seen,  all  governments  are  shifting 
from  the  military  to  the  industrial  model.  The 

[59] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

overwhelming  majority  of  women  are  working 
women  and  all  women  are  directly  concerned 
in  the  matters  controlled  and  administered  by 
the  modern  state.  Just  because  she  was  not 
given  a  vote  at  the  time  when  she  was  not  di- 
rectly a  factor  in  the  military  establishment,  is 
no  reason  why  she  should  now  be  denied  a  vote 
regarding  matters  which  so  vitally  concern  her 
in  the  modem  industrial  state. 

There  are  matters  which  pertain  only  to 
small  groups  of  people.  Those  who  are  to- 
gether concerned  in  such  matters  ought  to  vote 
together.  There  is  no  reason  why  those  who 
are  not  concerned  should  be  permitted  to  vote 
concerning  things  which  do  not  concern  them, 
but  there  is  every  reason  why  those  who  are 
concerned  should  be  permitted  to  vote  concern- 
ing the  things  which  do  concern  them. 

This  should  apply  to  local  self-government, 
to  industrial  groups,  to  great  geographical 
subdivisions  of  territory,  and,  finally,  to  great 
international  affairs. 

If  the  elective  franchise  is  to  be  just,  it  must 
be  extended  until  none  are  excluded  from  being 
consulted  concerning  their  own  affairs,  but  at 

[60] 


THE  ELECTIVE  FRANCHISE 

the  same  time,  limited  until  no  one  shall  be 
permitted  to  vote  in  matters  which  in  no  way 
concern  him. 

The  world  has  outgrown  the  simple,  primitive 
community.  The  citizen  of  the  modern  state 
has  many  interests.  It  would  be  impossible 
justly  and  effectively  to  administer  collective 
affairs  by  unanimous  agreement.  The  long 
period  of  military  masteiy  is  at  an  end.  Mili- 
tary power  has  brought  the  ends  of  the  earth 
together.  Its  culmination  in  the  European 
war  has  outranked  all  previous  records  of  dis- 
aster. 

While  miKtarism  lasts,  the  centralization  of 
authority  and  the  resulting  despotism  of  mili- 
tary forms  of  organization  are  inevitable.  But 
that  is  despotism.  The  ballot  is  as  essential  to 
democracy  as  the  bayonet  is  to  despotism.  Ma- 
jority rule  is  the  only  rational  method  of  ad- 
ministering the  affairs  of  a  free  state.  The 
elective  franchise  must  be  universal.  It  must 
be  given  on  equal  terms  to  all  who  share  in  the 
advantages  and  bear  the  responsibilities  of  liv- 
ing within  the  borders  of  such  a  state. 


[61] 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Business  Body  Called  the  State 

The  State,  it  has  been  seen,  comprises  in  its 
organization  all  forms  of  organized  activity. 
This  includes  all  forms  of  business  organiza- 
tions. The  State  itself  is  nothing  more  than 
such  a  business  body. 

The  State  exists  in  order  to  do  certain  things. 
These  things  involve  all  the  collective  activities 
of  society  and  especially  those  involved  in  the 
great  business  of  making  a  living,  that  is,  pro- 
viding for  the  general  welfare. 

Smaller  business  bodies  issue  shares  of  stock 
as  indicating  the  membership  in  them  of  those 
persons  of  whom  they  are  composed.  The 
members  of  such  a  business  body  are  called 
shareholders,  or  partners,  as  the  case  may  be. 

The  members  of  the  business  body  called  the 
State  are  called  citizens  and  their  right  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  control  of  the  State  is  called  the 
elective  franchise,  or  the  right  to  vote. 

[62] 


THE  BUSINESS  BODY  CALLED  THE  STATE 

Politics  is  nothing  else  than  the  business  of 
carrying  on  those  affairs  in  which  all  the  mem- 
bers of  society  are  jointly  concerned.  An  elec- 
tion is,  in  fact,  a  shareholders'  meeting,  held  to 
elect  directors  or  superintendents  and  to  vote 
instructions  to  these  public  servants  as  to  the 
wishes  of  the  public  to  which  the  business 
belongs. 

The  State,  the  government,  the  public,  the 
social  organism,  call  it  what  you  will,  the  col- 
lective hfe  of  all  the  people  is  simply  a  big 
business  corporation  or  unlimited  partnership 
in  which  everybody  is  an  equal  shareholder  with 
all  the  rest. 

It  has  been  aptly  and  truthfully  said  that 
every  citizen  of  the  United  States  is  an  equal 
shareholder  in  the  richest  and  most  powerful 
business  corporation  on  all  the  earth. 

Notice  some  of  the  sound  business  principles 
which  no  rationally  conducted,  privately  owned 
business  would  ignore,  but  which  do  not  usually 
prevail  in  the  control  of  the  business  of  the 
State  as  a  business  body. 

1.  In  a  rationally  conducted  business,  no 
shareholder  votes  for  a  director  because  he  is  a 

[63] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

friend  or  a  relative  or  because  he  is  a  fellow- 
member  of  a  chm'ch  or  a  lodge.  It  would  not 
be  "good  business'*  to  do  so. 

No  one  would  vote  for  a  republican,  a  demo- 
crat, or  a  prohibitionist  to  help  manage  a  gold 
mine  or  a  shoe  factory  on  account  of  politics, 
not  capacity.  A  corporation  whose  affairs 
were  so  managed  would,  in  the  end,  be  managed 
by  a  receiver. 

No  capable  builder  employs  carpenters  be- 
cause he  is  personally  fond  of  them,  or  keeps 
them  on  the  job  for  social,  religious,  or  partisan 
reasons,  or  for  any  other  reason,  any  longer 
than  they  are  satisfactory  as  workingmen. 

The  only  questions  asked  in  the  employment 
of  labor,  in  a  rationally  conducted,  privately 
owned  business,  are  questions  as  to  efficiency 
and  responsibility.  The  introduction  of  any 
other  matters  would  be  disloyalty  to  the  busi- 
ness. One  of  the  strongest  arguments  offered 
by  the  trades  unions  for  the  closed  shop  is  the 
guarantee  that  it  offers,  of  the  efficiency  and 
responsibility  of  the  men  so  employed. 

But  the  State  is  such  a  business  body.  All 
of  the  people  are  all  the  time  serving  the  State 
in  some  way,  so  far  as  they  are  useful  people. 

[64] 


THE  BUSINESS  BODY  CALLED  THE  STATE 

Elections  only  mean  promotion  in  the  service, 
the  enlargement  of  the  opportunities  for  serv- 
ice, and  the  increase  of  responsibility  in  the 
case  of  those  specially  chosen  for  special  social 
tasks  in  the  promotion  of  the  common  good. 

Efficiency  and  responsibility,  the  ability  to 
do  well  and  the  certainty  that  they  will  do  well 
the  things  demanded  of  them,  ought  to  be  the 
sole  and  only  test  for  promotion  in  the  public 
service  as  well  as  in  the  wise  administration  of 
the  smaller  and  so-called  private  business 
companies. 

The  things  demanded  of  public  servants  are 
made  known  through  earlier  precedents, 
through  instructions  given  by  a  referendum, 
through  the  established  laws,  and  through  the 
platforms  of  the  successful  parties  in  the  elec- 
tions,— ^that  is,  of  the  meetings  of  the  share- 
holders of  the  municipahty,  the  State,  or  the 
nation. 

The  introduction  of  any  other  consideration 
is  an  abuse  or  an  abandonment  of  the  functions 
of  good  citizenship  and,  so  far  as  it  gives  clique, 
creed,  race  prejudice,  or  great  private  interests 
the  advantage,  it  is  a  surrender  to  despotism 
and  the  betrayal  of  democracy. 

[65] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

2.  In  the  election  of  a  corporation  director, 
no  shareholder  would  be  refused  a  vote  be- 
cause a  woman,  or  for  any  other  reason  what- 
soever, so  long  as  the  shareholder's  interest  in 
the  business  was  admitted  and  his  ownership 
not  disputed. 

Women  who  are  out  in  active  opposition  to 
woman  suffrage,  that  is,  in  opposition  to 
women  having  voice  in  the  greatest  of  all  busi- 
ness bodies  and  in  which  they  are  admitted  to 
be  shareholders,  do  not  themselves  neglect  or 
refuse  to  vote  their  own  shares  in  railway,  in- 
surance, manufacturing,  and  banking  com- 
panies. 

The  State  is  not  a  "social  clique,"  or  a  pri- 
vate club.  The  relations  of  the  citizens  to 
each  other  are  not  the  relations  of  the  club 
members  in  any  certain  "social  set."  The  re- 
lations of  the  citizens  of  any  State  to  each 
other  are  purely  and  only  of  a  business  char- 
acter. 

No  white  man  refuses  to  sell  goods  to  or  to 
buy  corn  or  cotton  from  a  negi'o,  an  ignorant 
farmer,  a  woman  or  a  foreign  born  citizen, 
or  even  a  criminal  under  the  law.  In  every 
rational  business  body,  the  only  question  asked 

[66] 


THE  BUSINESS  BODY  CALLED  THE  STATE 

is,  "In  what  way  are  you  concerned"?  It  is 
frankly  admitted  if  one  is  in  no  way  concerned 
in  any  matter,  then  he  has  no  business  to  inter- 
fere, but  if  he  is  concerned  his  right  to  be  heard 
and  to  be  taken  into  account  must  not  be  de- 
nied. 

In  the  business  body  called  the  State,  all 
are  shareholders,  all  are  concerned,  all  have  the 
right  to  vote,  each  on  the  single  share  that  he 
holds — ^no  more  and  no  less.  And  every- 
one has  that  right,  regardless  of  sex,  race,  nat- 
ionality, possessions,  payment  of  poll  taxes, 
education,  character,  or  occupation,  for  in  spite 
of  any  of  these  considerations  he  is  still  a  share- 
holder. In  so  far  as  this  shareholder's  right 
is  denied  to  anyone  for  any  reason,  despotism 
is  triumphant  and  democracy  abandoned. 

3.  No  private  business  corporation  would 
buy  from  another  what  it  could  produce  with 
its  own  equipment  and  within  its  own  resources 
at  a  less  price  or  of  a  better  quality. 

All  the  world  over  the  State,  society,  the 
great  collectivity,  is  all  the  time  paying  for  the 
use  of  the  natural  resources,  for  transporta- 
tion, for  manufactures,  for  the  use  of  credit, 

[67] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

for  storage,  and  for  final  distribution,  vast 
sums  in  excess  of  the  cost  of  these  things  and 
services. 

This  is  especially  true  of  naval  and  military 
equipment  and  of  the  food,  clothing  and  sup- 
plies of  armies  and  of  the  munitions  of  war. 

But  through  all  the  great  social  services  of 
every  sort,  the  great  business  body  called  the 
State,  in  which  all  are  shareholders,  is  being 
robbed  by  these  smaller  business  bodies,  the 
private  monopolies,  in  which  the  many  are  not 
shareholders.  These  vast  sums,  in  excess  of 
the  cost  of  the  services,  are  privately  appropri- 
ated to  the  enrichment  and  demoralization  of 
the  few  and  to  the  oppression  and  impoverish- 
ment of  the  many,  with  great  corresponding 
loss  to  the  State,  that  is,  to  the  common  good. 

If  the  State,  with  all  its  powers  and  re- 
sources, were  the  direct  possession  of  a  great 
private  company,  it  is  inconceivable  that  this 
wasteful  and  unbusinesslike  and  harmful  pol- 
icy of  buying  from  another  what  the  company 
could  more  cheaply  produce  for  itself,  would 
long  prevail. 

While  it  does  prevail  it  can  prevail  only 
through  the  control  by  the  private  interests 
[68] 


THE  BUSINESS  BODY  CALLED  THE  STATE 

of  the  few  of  the  affairs  of  all.  This  can  be 
done  only  through  special  privileges  of  some 
sort,  but  that  is  despotism.  So  far  and  so 
long  as  that  prevails,  despotism  still  sur- 
vives. 

At  this  point  in  the  argument,  the  claim  is 
made  that  inasmuch  as  this  sort  of  business  in- 
ability is  shown  by  the  State,  therefore,  the 
State  cannot  safely  be  trusted  with  the  direct 
administration  of  great  business  affairs. 

But  it  is  seen  above  that  the  State  fails  as 
it  does  fail  only  because  of  the  control  of  the 
State  by  great  private  interests.  The  failure 
of  the  State  to  provide  for  the  common  good, 
through  the  failure  of  the  State  to  attend  ef- 
fectively to  its  own  affairs,  is  the  failure  of 
State  control  by  great  private  interests.  There- 
fore it  is  an  argument  for  the  ending  of  the 
control  by  the  great  private  interests  of  pub- 
lic affairs  and  for  securing  in  the  direct  serv- 
ices of  the  State,  the  great  managerial  ability 
of  those  who  do  make  good  in  the  affairs  of  the 
few,  and  could  make  good  in  the  affairs  of  all, 
if  made  the  servants  of  all  instead  of  the  bond- 
slaves of  the  few. 

[69] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

Every  undertaking  by  which  the  State,  the 
whole  body  of  the  people,  substitutes  public 
enterprise  for  any  great  private  monopoly  and 
so  secures  at  the  cost  of  the  service,  the  use 
of  natural  resources,  transportation,  manufac- 
ture, credit,  storage,  or  delivery,  helps  to  make 
an  end  of  this  wasteful  and  unbusinesslike  mis- 
management of  the  collective  affairs  of  all.  It 
saves  the  needless  payments  of  unearned 
ground  rents,  unearned  interest  payments,  and 
unearned  monopoly  profits,  and  it  saves  the 
State  from  the  demoralization  of  those  who  get 
what  they  do  not  earn  and  the  impoverishment 
of  those  who  earn  what  they  do  not  get. 

So  far  and  so  fast  as  this  prevails,  despotism 
dies  and  democracy  is  made  triumphant. 

The  State  is  a  business  body.  Everybody 
is  a  shareholder  in  the  State.  The  manage- 
ment of  the  State  is  everybody's  business.  When 
everybody  will  give  intelligent  attention  to  his 
own  business,  on  real  business  principles,  favor- 
itism, clique  rule,  monopoly  control — ^that  is, 
despotism  will  disappear  and  democracy  will 
prevail. 


[70] 


PART  II 
CURRENT  POLITICS 


CHAPTER  VII 

Political  Paeties 

Questions  of  public  controversy  are  rarely 
of  such  a  nature  that  their  final  settlement  at 
any  particular  time  is  possible.  Whatever  pub- 
he  problems  may  be  settled  today,  new  forms 
of  activity  will  change  the  conditions  under 
which  the  settlement  was  affected  and  repro- 
duce tomorrow  the  same  old  problems  for  fur- 
ther consideration. 

If  it  were  not  so,  questions  of  public  policy 
could  be  settled  once  and  for  all,  and  town 
councils,  legislatures,  congresses,  and  parlia- 
ments could  be  finally  and  forever  adjourned. 

Each  new  adjustment  creates  a  new  envi- 
ronment and  ultimately  a  new  man  within  the 
new  environment.  It  is  not  altogether  true 
that  the  environment  creates  the  man,  or  that 
the  man  creates  the  environment.  The  envi- 
ronment and  the  man  are  forever  acting  and 
re-acting  on  each  other.    Each  new  change  in 

[73] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

man  means  a  new  change  in  his  environment, 
and  each  such  change  means  a  new  adjust- 
ment. 

PoHtics  has  to  do  with  these  continuous  re- 
adjustments of  laws  and  institutions,  which  are 
the  conscious  and  purposeful  creation  of  man's 
collective  interests,  always  abreast  of  the  "new 
occasions"  which  forever  "teach  new  duties." 

It  is  frequently  complained  that  conflicting, 
sordid,  personal  clique,  class,  or  race  interests, 
interfere  with  man's  rational  progress.  But 
the  sum  total  of  these  interests  makes  up  the 
environment  and  just  because  this  environment 
is  forever  changing — changing  as  the  result  of 
every  activity  of  man — the  fact  is,  that  these  in- 
terests are  themselves  the  very  elements  and 
means  of  human  progress.  Thus  it  is  seen  that 
the  problems  of  politics  are  problems  ever  in 
process  of  solution,  yet  never  solved.  It  is 
because  of  this  that  all  rational  advance  is  not 
independent  of,  or  in  spite  of,  but  because  of 
these  conflicting,  sordid,  personal,  clique,  class 
or  race  interests  of  men.  Therefore,  rational 
advance  will  be  sought  for,  not  by  ignoring 
these  conflicting  interests,  not  in  the  effort  to 

[74] 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

avoid  them,  but  in  the  midst  of,  and  by  means 
of,  these  very  conflicts. 

We  have  seen  how  the  ballot,  the  right  to  be 
heard  and  to  be  accounted  for,  is  the  point  of 
attachment  between  the  individual  and  the  col- 
lectivity of  which  he  is  a  part.  It  is  by  the 
power  of  this  ballot,  or  right  to  be  heard,  in 
his  own  hands  that  he  makes  himself  an  ef- 
fective part  in  whatever  group  he  may  find 
himself  a  factor.  It  is  by  this  ballot,  in  the 
hands  of  others,  that  his  relations  to  others  and 
the  demands  of  others  upon  himself  are  effect- 
ively made  known  to  him. 

Should  one  attempt  to  act  singly  in  the  use 
of  his  ballot,  the  power  of  his  citizenship  could 
be  but  slightly  felt  in  communities  where  the 
majority  vote  is  the  final  authority.  The  only 
effective  use  of  the  ballot  is  in  its  collective 
use.  The  only  rational  method  by  which  bal- 
lots can  be  so  massed  as  to  have  the  force  of 
majorities  and  so  to  control  the  public  power 
is  by  their  collective  use.  The  very  nature  of 
voting  is  an  array  of  interests  with  each  other, 
or  against  each  other,  which  groups  of  men 
hold  with  each  other,  or  against  each  other. 
[75] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

In  primitive  communities  there  were  no  regu- 
larly organized  political  parties.  The  ques- 
tions dealt  with  were  simple,  easily  understood, 
and  readily  disposed  of  by  a  show  of  hands, 
or  by  a  division  into  groups  standing  apart 
in  expression  of  conflicting  interests  or 
wishes. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  the  small  village  com- 
munities of  the  later  days  of  barbarism  met  the 
simple  questions  of  common  defense,  or  of  the 
personal  quarrels  among  the  tribesmen.  New 
questions  were  easily  understood,  and  as  there 
was  practically  economic  equality  of  opportu- 
nity there  were  no  lasting  economic  classes  with- 
in the  barbarian  communities  on  which  to  base 
the  existence  of  regularly  organized  political 
parties.  And  just  because  permanent  economic 
classes  did  not  exist,  permanent  political  par- 
ties had  no  share  in  the  life  of  the  field  and 
forest  dwellers  in  the  savage  and  barbarian 
communities. 

In  the  same  way,  even  now,  no  small  village 
composed  of  citizens,  having  practically  the 
same  economic  interests,  would  be  able  to  or- 
ganize and  preserve  permanent  political  par- 
ties, lasting  on  through  the  years,  were  it  not 

[•76] 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

for  the  greater  national  interests,  which  first 
cause  the  existence  of  such  parties  and  after- 
wards are  able  to  maintain  their  existence,  even 
in  such  localities,  not  because  of  any  local  con- 
flict of  interests,  but  because  the  larger  national 
organizations  are  able  to  dominate  the  small 
communities. 

Thus  national  parties  come  into  existence  as 
the  representatives  of  conflicting  economic  in- 
terests. In  small  neighborhoods,  where  the 
economic  interests  are  understood  to  be  all  one 
way,  or  the  other,  separate  contending  political 
parties,  with  nothing  to  contend  about,  are  able 
to  maintain  only  an  uncertain  and  precarious 
existence. 

As  the  barbarian  tribes,  through  the  process 
of  federation,  grew  into  the  ancient  nations, 
political  parties  made  their  appearance. 

The  Patrician  and  Plebeian  parties  of  Rome 
were  a  typical  instance  of  what  occurred  when- 
ever an  unequal  economic  status  led  to  a  gen- 
eral clash  of  economic  interests. 

The  Gracchi  did  not  create  these  parties. 
The  clash  of  interests  created  the  opposing 
groups  and  the  Gracchi  became  the  spokesmen 

[77] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

of  the  Plebeians,  not  because  they  wanted  to 
talk  about  something,  not  just  because  they 
wanted  a  party,  but  because  the  war  of  interests 
was  raging  and  they  were  bound  to  speak  and 
vote  and,  if  need  be,  to  fight,  in  order  to  win  the 
victoiy  for  the  group  whose  cause  they  had 
espoused. 

New  interests  demand  new  adjustments. 
Each  new  adjustment  is  made  necessary  by  a 
clash  of  interests,  else  there  would  be  nothing 
to  adjust.  Just  because  the  clash  of  interests 
forces  the  new  adjustments,  it  creates  new  par- 
ties or  rebuilds  old  ones,  and  just  because  this 
is  the  only  way  of  securing  the  adjustment  of 
old  conditions  to  new  interests,  the  political 
party  becomes  a  most  important  factor  in  pol- 
itics. It  is,  in  fact,  the  last  step  in  the  process 
by  which,  with  or  without  a  resort  to  arms,  new 
interests  obtain  the  mastery  in  the  modern 
state.  It  is  therefore,  the  last  alternative  next 
preceding  civil  war.  The  triumphant  polit- 
ical party  must  be  obeyed  or  government 
fail  or  civil  war  must  follow.  Its  purpose 
is  to  compel  obedience  to  the  public  will  and  to 
avoid  civil  war. 

[•78] 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

If  the  political  party  could  always  exist 
for  such  a  purpose  the  current  problems 
of  popular  government  would  be  easily 
solved. 

But  the  fact  is  that  while  all  this  is  true, 
nevertheless,  it  is  also  true  that  political  parties, 
like  governments  themselves,  like  churches, 
fraternities,  and  all  other  associations  of  men 
— ^no  matter  how  hard  it  is  to  build  them  for  a 
worthy  purpose,  when  that  purpose  has  once 
been  served,  or  when  organizations  can  no 
longer  serve  the  purposes  for  which  they  have 
been  created,  it  is  harder  to  get  rid  of  them, 
when  no  longer  needed,  than  it  was  to  build 
them  in  the  first  place. 

Party  battle  cries,  personal  memories  of  de- 
parted leaders,  the  sense  of  belonging  to  the 
group  that  won  the  pennant,  to  an  organiza- 
tion with  a  history,  to  an  organization  which  is 
the  only  point  of  connection  between  one's  self 
and  great  and  distinguished  people,  the  few 
living  and  the  many  dead — all  these  make  the 
abandonment  of  any  kind  of  an  organization 
difficult  when  once  it  has  served  a  great  and 
beneficent  purpose. 

Such  party  fealty  becomes  a  sort  of  a  polit- 

[79] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

ical  superstition,  and  just  as  a  religious  super- 
stition may  survive  the  death  of  religion  itself 
and  so  secure  a  wicked  and  worthless  servant 
of  the  church,  so  does  political  superstition  lead 
millions  of  people  to  loyally  support  outworn 
and  impossible  political  parties  in  utter  disre- 
gard of  the  public  good. 

If  self-government  is  to  prevail  the  organi- 
zation and  management  of  political  parties 
must  be  taken  seriously  in  hand,  for  political 
parties  are,  and  are  likely  to  remain,  a  com- 
manding factor  in  the  machinery  of  self-gov- 
ernment. 

If  condemnation  could  have  disposed  of  pol- 
itical parties,  then  they  would  have  disap- 
peared long  ago. 

If  urging  public  men  to  be  above  party  spirit 
and  to  love  their  country  more  than  their  party 
could  avail,  then  political  parties  would  have 
been  forever  agencies  solely  for  the  public 
good. 

If  warnings  against  the  dangers  of  party 
spirit  were  sufficient,  then  the  sober  farewell 
words  of  Washington,  the  first  President  of 
the  United  States,  would  have  made  partisan 

[80] 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

abuse  of  the  power  of  citizenship  impossible. 
The  world  will  long  remember  Washington. 
It  has  long  ago  forgotten  or  ignored  these  part- 
ing words. 

The  greatest  problem  in  politics,  greater 
than  any  measure  presented  by  any  and  all 
parties,  is  the  problem  involved  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  machinery  of  self-government  in 
such  a  way  that  the  power  of  party  organiza- 
tion, the  rush,  the  enthusiasm  and  the 
resistless  force  of  numbers  will  help  to 
secure  the  ends  of  just  and  capable  self- 
government. 

This  involves  some  means  for  making  known 
the  merits  of  new  measures,  for  easily  creating 
new  majorities  on  behalf  of  new  measures,  for 
forcing  questions  of  controversy  to  a  speedy 
and  certain  settlement,  and,  finally,  some  means 
of  compelling  absolute  obedience  to  the  public 
will  by  the  men  entrusted  with  the  public 
power.  These  things  once  secured,  society  will 
not  then  escape  from  political  parties,  but  the 
current  abuses  of  party  organization  will  be- 
come impossible. 

The  "fire  of  party-spirit"  will  not  go  out. 
[81] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

It  will  be  confined  in  the  furnace.  There  it 
will  create  the  energy,  which,  usefully  applied, 
will  hasten  human  progress  as  has  no  other 
instrument  of  social  service  yet  known  to  man. 


[82] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Obstructive  Forms  of  Party  Organization 

Every  new  partisan  measure  takes  on  its 
earliest  form  and  gets  its  first  public  support 
in  a  caucus  of  some  sort. 

The  caucus  may  be  privately  held  and  made 
up  of  invited  men  representing  some  faction 
of  a  party,  or  it  may  be  open,  well  advertised, 
and  composed  of  such  members  of  a  party  as 
may  take  the  trouble  to  attend. 

Here  programs  are  agreed  on,  candidates 
named  for  primary  elections,  if  they  are  to  be 
held,  or  delegates  selected  for  conventions, 
when  the  primary  is  not  required.  In  any 
event,  it  is  the  caucus  which  rules  the  policy 
of  the  party,  names  its  authorized  spokesmen, 
and  makes  the  beginnings  of  all  political  war- 
fare. 

When  primaries  are  held,  a  factional  slate 
is  made  for  each  faction  or  active  interest  in  a 
factional  caucus,  and  preparations  are  made 
[83] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

for  winning  the  control  of  the  party,  through 
victory  at  the  primaries.  Then  the  conventions 
follow — city,  county,  state  and  national  con- 
ventions. 

In  all  of  these,  the  conjflicts  at  the  first  under- 
taken in  the  caucuses  are  fought  out  over  and 
over  again  for  final  mastery  within  the  party. 

No  one  can  ever  tell,  in  a  satisfactory  man- 
ner, the  story  of  the  swaps,  bargains,  mutual 
understandings,  alliances,  betrayals,  purchases, 
sell  outs,  parades,  banners,  factional  headquar- 
ters, midnight  intrigues,  carousals,  manufac- 
tured excitement  and  personal  excesses  which 
characterize  these  various  conventions.  Con- 
fusion is  specially  planned  for.  Disorder  is 
arranged  subject  to  the  call  of  those  who  need 
it  and  it  is  continued  for  a  fixed  number  of 
minutes,  on  each  special  occasion,  as  it  may 
arise,  all  arranged  and  paid  for  in  advance. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  any  self-respecting 
citizen  has  ever  taken  an  active  share  in  such  a 
convention,  and  has  yelled  his  share  of  the  yell- 
ing, and  afterwards  has  discovered  the  nature 
of  the  performance  in  which  he  has  been  en- 
gaged, who  has  not  reflected  on  his  own  con- 
[84] 


PARTY  ORGANIZATION 

duct  with  deep  humiliation  as  having  been 
guilty  of  an  act  altogether  unworthy  of  a  ra- 
tional human  being. 

Such  political  conventions  are  not  and  can- 
not be  made  deliberative  bodies.  Not  more 
than  one  hundred  people  can  be  participators 
in  a  parliamentary  body,  which  is  at  the  same 
time  to  be  deliberative  in  its  proceedings,  that 
is,  a  body  which  is  to  act  after  due  deliberation 
and  because  of  its  deliberation. 

Nothing  is  more  rare  than  for  one  to  change 
his  position  as  the  result  of  a  discussion  of  some 
proposed  public  measure  in  such  a  convention 
and  when  one  does  so  change  his  position,  he  is 
immediately  despised  for  having  done  so.  It 
never  occurs  to  his  fellow  delegates  that  he 
may  have  been  deliberating  in  a  deliberative 
body.  To  make  a  new  deal  is  easily  under- 
stood; to  pretend  to  change  one's  mind — that 
is  nothing  but  false  pretense. 

Political  conventions  are  purposely  made 
large,  unwieldy,  noisy  and  unparliamentary. 
That  serves  best  the  purposes  of  the  makers 
of  slates  and  most  effectively  converts  the  con- 
vention into  an  instrument  for  betraying  the 
public  good. 

[85] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

The  usual  work  of  a  political  convention  cov- 
ers the  making  of  party  rules,  of  a  party  plat- 
form, the  naming  of  candidates,  and  the  elec- 
tion of  committees. 

Rules  and  platforms  are  usually  written 
overnight  under  conditions  where  only  the 
most  hasty  and  unsatisfactory  work  can  he 
undertaken.  Such  a  platform  is  the  result  of 
such  numerous  compromises  and  of  such  hasty 
and  ill-considered  action  that  it  is  usually  an 
instrument  which  no  one  can  conscientiously 
endorse  or  long  respect. 

It  then  becomes  the  function  of  letters  of 
acceptance  and  campaign  speeches  to  make  up 
for  its  deficiences  and  to  explain  away  its  omis- 
sions and  accidents.  The  public  officers,  sup- 
posed to  have  been  elected  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  out  the  platform  declarations  usually 
proceed  to  administer  the  public  offices  for  the 
private  advantage  of  the  special  interests  in 
control,  while  platform  promises  are  held  up 
for  ridicule  or  are  entirely  ignored. 

Sometimes  platforms  are  not  written  over- 
night. They  have  been  prepared  long  in  ad- 
vance by  special  and  powerful  interests.  In 
such  a  case  the  platform  committee  is  made 

[86] 


PARTY  ORGANIZATION 

up  in  the  convention  of  the  agents  and  spokes- 
men of  these  same  interests.  Such  a  committee 
makes  no  pretense  of  writing  the  platform. 
It  favorably  reports  the  platform  already- 
written. 

Such  platforms  usually  appeal  to  the  prej- 
udices of  the  people,  are  carefully  written  with 
the  purpose  to  excite  and  to  enlist  every  par- 
tisan feeling,  and  entirely  to  overlook  or  in- 
definitely to  postpone  all  questions  of  real  con- 
troversy. 

In  such  platforms,  issues  that  are  to  be  made 
the  very  center  of  campaign  battles  are  indef- 
initely stated,  and  then,  after  the  shouting  is 
over  and  the  voting  is  done,  it  is  still  a  question 
whether  the  promised  revision  really  meant 
"revision  up"  or  "revision  down." 

The  same  is  true  with  regard  to  candidates. 
All  the  dehberating  is  done  in  advance.  Dele- 
gates are  elected,  pledged  either  publicly  or 
privately  to  do  certain  things,  to  support  cer- 
tain candidates,  not  to  deliberate  but  to  obey. 
If  any  particular  candidate  cannot  get  the 
nomination,  then  the  leaders  of  his  group  are 
free  to  bargain  and  the  usual  delegate  con- 

[87] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

firms  the  action  of  the  "boss"  and  votes  accord- 
ing to  the  group  to  which  he  belongs,  regard- 
less alike  both  of  his  own  intelligence  and  of  the 
public  good. 

The  only  excuse  for  the  existence  of  party 
conventions  is  that  men  get  together  to  confer, 
to  deliberate,  to  get  the  benefit  of  joint  judge- 
ment, but  none  of  these  things  are  possible  in 
the  ordinary  political  conventions.  Thought- 
ful men  are  always  disappointed.  Only  the 
intriguers  and  bargainers,  who  want  what  can- 
not be  secured  by  calm  consideration,  are  heard 
to  declare  when  the  work  is  over:  "The  great- 
est gathering  of  thoughtful  men  ever  assem- 
bled in  calm  consideration  of  a  nation's  des- 
tiny." 

The  party  committees  are  made  up  of  men 
who  are  entitled  to  more  consideration  than 
ever  has  been  given  them.  It  is  these  com- 
mittees, which  control  the  preliminary  arrange- 
ments for  all  conventions.  They  manipulate 
the  delegations,  control  their  organization,  ap- 
point their  committees,  furnish  the  committee 
reports,  ready  made,  or  in  the  making,  name 
the  candidates,  name  their  successors  in  office, 
[88] 


PARTY  ORGANIZATION 

conduct  the  campaigns,  and  when  the  voting 
is  over  seek  to  use  whatever  of  pubhc  power 
has  been  secured  for  their  party,  not  in  the  ef- 
fort to  secure  the  pubhc  good,  but  so  to  man- 
age affairs  as  to  create  situations  which  will 
make  their  own  future  control  of  their  party 
possible. 

Political  party  committees  are  always  held 
responsible  for  immediate  partisan  benefits. 
When  partisan  benefits  and  the  public  welfare 
come  in  conflict,  should  the  committee  forget 
the  party  but  remember  the  common  good,  or 
should  it  serve  the  party  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  its  reelection  impossible,  then  the  poli- 
ticians and  the  private  interests  speedily  ar- 
range for  a  new  committee — one  that  "can 
make  good." 

It  is  because  of  these  limitations  in  the  way 
of  service  and  because  of  these  powers  for 
harm  that  such  committees  forever  exist  under 
conditions  and  for  purposes  inconsistent  with 
the  public  welfare.  The  party  committee,  like 
the  party  itself,  cannot  be  ignored,  cannot  be 
disposed  of.  Improved  machinery  which  will 
make  service  for  the  public  good  the  only  con- 
trolling consideration,  both  for  the  party  and 

[89] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

for  the  committees  controlling  the  party,  is, 
above  all  things,  necessary  if  rational  self- 
government  is  to  prevail. 

Campaigns  should  always  be  campaigns  of 
education.  The  purposes  of  the  campaigns  are 
to  present  the  merits  of  the  measures  proposed, 
the  de-merits  of  the  measures  opposed,  and  the 
qualifications  of  the  candidates. 

Vast  sums  of  money  are  raised  which  are  un- 
necessary for  these  purposes.  Great  armies 
of  workers  are  employed  who  know  nothing  of 
the  issues  involved,  and  who  could  not  explain 
them  even  if  they  did  understand  them.  But 
these  workers  seek  for,  and  obtain  votes  by 
methods  which  do  not  appeal  to  the  public 
intelligence  nor  are  they  subject  to  moral 
considerations. 

In  the  great  general  elections  a  hundred  or 
more  different  persons  are  running  as  candi- 
dates for  local,  state,  and  national  offices.  All 
these  are  grouped  together,  while  as  many  ques- 
tions of  public  importance  are  at  the  same  time 
under  consideration,  any  one  of  which  would  be 
worthy  of  more  attention  than  all  together  are 
able  to  secure  in  an  ordinary  campaign  docu- 

[90] 


PARTY  ORGANIZATION 

ment,  or  at  an  ordinary  campaign  meeting.  The 
information  given  is  hastily  prepared.  It  is 
prepared  by  those  directly  interested  in  the 
conclusions  reached.  It  is  distributed  at  the 
expense  of  those  who  are  directly  seeking  pri- 
vate benefit  through  the  use  of  the  public 
power. 

It  is  not  possible  for  one  to  be  in  entire 
agreement  with  all  these  measures,  but  he  can- 
not vote  for  the  measures  he  wants  without  at 
the  same  time  voting  for  the  measures  he  does 
not  want.  Of  the  candidates  who  are  named 
on  his  party's  ticket,  he  cannot  know  them  all. 
Some  of  those  whom  he  does  know,  he  knows 
to  be  unworthy  of  his  confidence.  Yet  he  can- 
not oppose  those  whom  he  does  not  want  with- 
out endangering  the  election  of  those  whom  he 
does  want. 

In  the  midst  of  such  doubt  as  to  the  facts, 
as  to  the  merits  of  measures,  as  to  the  merits 
of  candidates,  and  as  to  the  real  outcome  of 
victory  or  defeat,  is  it  any  wonder  that  large 
and  increasing  numbers  of  the  most  intelligent 
citizens  take  no  share  in  party  affairs  and  are 
not  even  coming  to  the  elections  to  share  in  a 
farce  which  they  can  see  no  way  to  avoid  and 
[91] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

have  not  the  unfortunate  capacity  longer  to 
endure  ? 

In  the  elections  the  registrations  are  falsi- 
fied. Repeaters  are  registered  at  the  same  time 
in  different  precincts  or  wards  and  even  in 
different  cities  and  states.  Men  are  shipped 
into  doubtful  districts  to  vote  under  registra- 
tions attached  to  vacant  lots  or  to  other  places 
of  impossible  residence,  or  to  vote  under  the 
names  of  men  long  dead  but  still  carried  on 
the  voters  lists  for  the  very  purpose  of  provid- 
ing an  opportunity  of  perpetrating  election 
frauds.  Working  men  easily  lose  their  resi- 
dence under  the  law  and  in  that  way  lose  their 
right  to  be  voters,  and  hence,  some  millions 
of  citizens  who  are  most  vitally  interested 
in  the  elections  are  each  year  unable  to  vote 
at  all. 

It  is  well  known  that  in  great  municipalities 
the  political  machines  of  both  parties  have  a 
joint  machine  covering  the  activities  of  both 
parties  for  business  purposes.  These  machines 
make  up  and  control  election  boards,  and  some- 
times they  make  the  count  to  correspond  to 
the  exigencies  of  a  bargain  to  "make  good"  for 

[92] 


PARTY  ORGANIZATION 

some  private  interest,  rather  than  in  accord- 
ance with  the  contents  of  the  ballot  box. 

Self-government, — that  is,  democracy  as 
against  despotism,  is  on  trial  for  its  life.  Yet 
those  interests  which  are  wholly  despotic  have 
provided  for  democracy  a  method  of  organiza- 
tion and  a  plan  of  procedure  under  which  a 
sham  democracy  becomes  inevitable  and  real 
democracy  is  utterly  impossible. 

A  way  of  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  the 
caucus,  from  the  corruption  of  the  registers, 
from  the  confusion,  disorder  and  passion  of 
the  conventions,  from  the  absurdities  of  plat- 
form making,  from  the  personal  interests  of 
candidates,  and  from  the  dominance  of  parti- 
san committees  must  be  found  as  the  only  hope 
of  preserving  and  extending  self-governing 
institutions. 


[93] 


CHAPTER  IX 

Obsteuctive  Forms  of  Government 
Procedure 

Popular  government  means  the  adoption  as 
the  highest  pubhc  authority  of  whatever  may- 
be the  real  majority  choice  as  to  any  particular 
public  affair.  Political  parties  primarily  and 
properly  exist  for  the  purpose  of  crystallizing 
into  the  forms  of  law  and  into  the  active  proc- 
esses of  public  administration  whatever  that 
majority  will  may  be  at  any  particular  time. 

It  will  rarely  happen  that  a  special  student 
of  public  affairs  will  be  able  to  act  at  any  given 
time  in  behalf  of  all  measures  or  policies  which, 
as  a  result  of  his  special  studies,  may  seem  to 
him  to  be  desirable. 

Such  a  specialist  must  always  act  for  some- 
thing somewhat  less  than  what  he,  himself,  is 
ready  to  support.  Such  a  person  is  not  aban- 
doning his  own  convictions  by  supporting  what 

[94] 


GOVERNMENT  PROCEDURE 

the  majority  are  ready  to  accept  while  pro- 
moting further  study  on  the  part  of  others 
with  regard  to  advanced  positions  to  which  he, 
himself,  may  be  prepared  to  give  support.  The 
purposes  of  self-government  will  be  best  se- 
cured and  such  a  speciahst  will  render  the  best 
services  if  the  general  average  of  intelligence 
and  conscience  can  always  be  crystallized  into 
public  authority. 

The  agitator  must  seek  to  raise  the  general 
average  of  intelligence  on  public  matters.  The 
statesman  must  seek  to  enact  and  to  enforce 
that  which  the  general  average  of  intelligence  is 
ready  to  accept. 

We  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter  how 
the  forms  of  partisan  organizations  contrive  to 
defeat  the  public  will.  It  is  not  only  true  of 
the  forms  of  partisan  organizations,  but  the 
forms  of  government  in  the  established  consti- 
tutions and  usages  of  all  countries  are  obstruc- 
tive in  their  forms  of  procedure,  as  related  to 
the  doing  of  the  public  will. 

In  monarchical  countries  where  courts  are 
appointed  and  legislation  is  revised  by  heredi- 
tary authorities,  the  power  to  defeat  the  public 
[95] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

will  is  direct,  easily  understood  and  can  be 
overcome  only  by  revolution. 

In  countries  like  the  United  States  where 
popular  institutions  have  been  established  and 
the  forms  of  hereditary  political  authority 
abolished,  the  forms  of  government  established 
for  the  purposes  of  obstruction,  while  not  so 
evident,  are  frequently  found  to  be  even  more 
effective. 

In  the  writing  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  it  is  no  longer  questioned  that 
the  purpose  of  the  authors  was  to  protect  great 
private  interests  against  invasion  from  the 
popular  will. 

Where  governing  authority  had  been  heredi- 
tary, "checks"  in  the  processes  of  government 
procedure  had  been  estabhshed  by  the  people 
as  against  these  hereditary  authorities.  The 
authors  of  the  American  constitution  were  able 
to  persuade  the  few  who  had  voice  in  its  adop- 
tion that  even  when  hereditary  authority  had 
been  abolished,  the  "checks"  provided  at  the 
first  as  against  hereditary  authorities  should 
then  be  made  operative  as  against  the  public 
will.  The  public  will  was  the  only  remaining 
power  to  be  made  subject  to  such  "checks"  and 

[96] 


GOVERNMENT  PROCEDURE 

whatever  limitations  this  pubhc  will  put  upon 
itself,  it  could  have  done  so  only  in  the  behalf 
of  private  special  privileges.  In  monarchical 
countries,  constitutional  "checks"  are  directed 
against  those  holding  hereditary  privileges  and 
in  behalf  of  the  common  people.  In  represen- 
tative forms  of  government,  constitutional 
"checks"  are  necessarily  directed  against  the 
common  people  and  in  behalf  of  special  privi- 
leges of  some  sort  still  surviving  imder  popular 
institutions. 

The  United  States  of  America  is  said  to  be 
a  Republic.  The  President,  however,  is  not 
elected  by  a  direct  vote  of  the  people.  He  is 
elected  by  a  College  of  Electors,  who  are  them- 
selves elected  by  direct  vote  in  the  various 
states.  The  majority  result  in  any  particular 
state  is  alone  available  in  determining  the  final 
result.  Minorities  are  not  counted.  Through 
this  device,  it  frequently  happens  that  a  Presi- 
dent is  elected  when  only  a  minority  of  the 
people  have  voted  for  him  and,  once  elected, 
his  authority  is  more  absolute  than  is  permitted 
to  any  hereditary  monarch  in  any  constitutional 
monarchy.  He  is,  in  fact,  an  elected  monarch 
[97] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

and  not,  as  his  official  title  would  indicate,  the 
executive  officer  of  a  free  state. 

The  legislative  department  of  the  govern- 
ment has  two  houses.  The  first  is  elected  by  a 
popular  vote,  fromiCongressional  districts  cre- 
ated in  proportion  to  the  population,  and  the 
other  is  made  up  of  two  Senators  from  each 
state,  regardless  of  population  and,  until  very 
recently,  not  elected  by  popular  vote  at  all,  but 
by  the  several  state  legislatures.  In  this  way, 
it  happened  continuously  that  men  of  great 
personal  wealth  or  acting  as  the  servants  of 
great  private  interests,  through  the  paying  of 
the  campaign  expenses  of  legislative  candi- 
dates, were  able  to  purchase  their  way  to  seats 
in  the  Senate.  In  this  way  it  frequently  oc- 
curred that  men  maintained  their  positions  as 
Senators  from  states  in  which  it  would  have 
been  impossible  to  elect  them  to  any  office  what- 
soever by  popular  majority. 

Even  now,  inasmuch  as  each  state,  regardless 
of  its  population  has  two  votes  in  the  Senate, 
it  still  happens  that  twenty-five  of  the  smaller 
states,  having  a  majority  vote  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  have  all  together  fewer  citizens 

[98] 


GOVERNMENT  PROCEDURE 

than  the  two  states  of  New  York  and  Pennsyl- 
vania. 

The  elected  representatives  of  fourteen  mil- 
lion people  in  the  smaller  states  now  have  the 
power  to  out-vote  the  representatives  of  eighty- 
six  million  people  in  the  rest  of  the  nation.  Is 
it  any  wonder  that  the  senatorial  seats  of 
Maine,  Rhode  Island,  Delaware,  Florida,  Wy- 
oming, Montana,  Utah  and  Nevada  are  of  spe- 
cial interest  to  the  great  private  monopolies  and 
are  given  attention  and  patronage  out  of  all 
proportion  to  their  importance? 

The  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  are  ap- 
pointed by  the  President  and  confirmed  by  the 
Senate.  Neither  the  people  nor  the  House  of 
Representatives  have  any  voice  whatsoever  in 
creating  these  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
Once  appointed  their  tenure  of  office  is  for 
life.  They  can  then  be  reached  only  by  im- 
peachment proceedings. 

The  Senate  may  throw  out  any  bill  passed 
by  the  lower  House.  The  President  may  veto 
any  bill  passed  by  both  Houses  of  Congress 
and  the  Supreme  Court,  by  a  majority  vote  of 
its  members,  may  declare  unconstitutional  any 

[99] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

law  after  it  has  been  enacted  by  both  Houses 
of  Congress  and  approved  by  the  President. 

In  international  matters,  there  is  no  democ- 
racy. 

Treaties  are  negotiated  by  men  appointed 
for  that  purpose.  Their  appointments  are  con- 
trolled by  those  most  interested  in  international 
trade.  The  Standard  Oil  Company  has  used 
the  diplomatic  service  of  the  United  States  as 
its  business  agent  for  many  years.  The  inter- 
national commercial  and  financial  interests  are 
the  masters  of  all  foreign  policies.  These  inter- 
ests are  controlled  by  great  private  monopolies. 
The  great  private  monopoly  interests  control 
the  international  relations  of  all  the  nations. 

In  this  country,  treaties  are  confirmed  by 
the  Senate.  The  House  of  Representatives  has 
nothing  to  say  in  the  matter.  'No  international 
representative  is  elected  by  a  popular  vote  in 
any  country,  nor  are  these  representatives  ever 
made  answerable  to  the  public  will  in  any  way. 
International  representatives  are  the  agents  of 
despotic  interests  the  world  over. 

But  these  international  treaties,  when  once 
made,  become  the  supreme  law  of  aU  lands 
[100] 


GOVERNMENT  PROCEDURE 

affected  by  them.  In  the  United  States,  trea- 
ties take  precedence  over  all  the  laws  of  Con- 
gress, and  over  all  the  acts  of  the  legislatures 
in  various  states. 

Despotic  private  monopoly  interests  can  bind 
our  country,  through  an  international  agree- 
ment, which  may  concern  our  most  serious  do- 
mestic affairs,  and  no  agency  exists  by  which 
the  democracy  of  the  country  can  be  heard  in 
its  own  behalf  or  can  reverse  any  such  agree- 
ments in  any  matters  made  the  subject  of  such 
a  trust-made  foreign  compact. 

In  both  Houses  of  Congress  measures  when 
once  presented  for  consideration  are  at  once 
referred  to  standing  committees.  These  com- 
mittees frequently  choose  to  smother  in  com- 
mittee meritorious  measures.  They  do  so  when- 
ever the  congressional  machine,  of  which  the 
chairm.en  are  usually  members,  so  elects.  The 
committee  may  do  so,  and  the  author  of  the  bill 
though  a  member  of  Congress,  is  helpless  to 
secure  the  consideration  of  his  measure.  He 
cannot  do  so  without  the  consent  of  the  com- 
mittee to  which  it  has  been  referred  or  by  the 
unanimous  consent  of  the  House.  These  refer- 
[101] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

ences  are  frequently  made  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  preventing  the  consideration  of  such  a 
biU. 

Should  the  committee  consent  to  report  the 
measure  to  the  favorable  consideration  of  the 
House,  the  Speaker  may  recognize  or  refuse  to 
recognize  whomsoever  he  will  during  its  con- 
sideration. Again,  in  this  waj%  and  for  a  lack 
of  a  hearing,  a  meritorious  measure  may  be 
slaughtered  in  the  House  of  its  friends. 

If  such  a  measure  is  passed  by  either  House 
it  must  be  sent  to  the  other  House  to  be  re- 
ferred again  to  committees  to  which  point 
nearly  all  of  the  proposed  American  progres- 
sive legislation  goes,  only  to  go  no  further.  It 
is  the  Senate  committee  which  is  said  to  be 
the  burying  ground  of  American  progressive 
legislation. 

The  life  of  a  Congress  is  for  two  years.  At 
the  end  of  every  two  years  all  measures  in  proc- 
ess of  consideration  are  marked  off  the  calendar 
and  the  whole  process  of  committee  reference, 
boss  ruled  discussions,  uninformed  voting  in 
the  one  House  only  to  be  smothered  in  the 
other,  must  be  undertaken  all  over  again  if 
legislation  is  to  advance  at  all. 
[  lOS  ] 


GOVERNMENT  PROCEDURE 

Again,  when  an  election  in  the  November  of 
any  year  puts  out  of  office  large  numbers  of 
the  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
this  discharge  of  "undesirable"  Congressmen 
does  not  take  effect  until  the  following  March, 
and  in  the  usual  course  of  things  the  newly 
elected  Congressmen  do  not  take  their  seats  in 
Congress  to  undertake  the  duties  of  office  for 
more  than  a  year  after  their  election.  In 
the  meantime,  for  a  whole  winter  term  the 
defeated  members,  against  whom  the  people 
of  their  districts  have  declared  their  "lack 
of  confidence,"  still  continue  to  write  the 
laws  of  the  very  nation  which  has  repudiated 
them. 

While  all  this  is  going  on  under  the  constitu- 
tion as  it  stands  it  is  true  that  the  constitution 
itself  may  be  amended.  But  to  do  so  both 
Houses  must  concur  in  a  resolution  submitting 
such  an  amendment.  Two-thirds  of  the  State 
Legislatures  must  approve  of  the  amendment 
in  order  to  secure  its  adoption. 

But  few  amendments  to  the  constitution 
have  ever  been  adopted  and  these  have  been 
adopted  in  times  of  great  excitement  and  when 
[103] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

the  majorities  necessary  for  their  submission 
and  adoption  have  had  ample  partisan  reasons 
for  securing  such  a  result. 

The  State  Legislatures  may  propose  an 
amendment  to  the  national  constitution  when- 
ever the  Legislatures  of  two-thirds  of  the 
states  shall  concur  in  such  a  proposal.  When 
this  has  been  done,  it  has  been  held  that  the 
action  of  the  various  state  Legislatures  was  not 
taken  concurrently,  if  they  did  not  act  at  the 
same  time  or  during  a  certain  year  or  term  of 
years  and,  therefore,  what  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  people  have  demanded,  even 
under  the  forms  of  law  as  they  stand,  has  been 
refused  by  these  special  defenders  of  monopo- 
listic power  and  special  privilege  in  our  court 
of  highest  resort. 

Is  it  not  perfectly  evident  that  if  the  popular 
will  is  to  be  easily  and  certainly  crystallized 
into  public  authority,  then  these  "checks"  which 
special  privileges  have  established  to  limit  the 
use  of  the  public  power  in  behalf  of  the  public 
good  must  be  set  aside?  Forms  of  popular 
government  which  operate  to  make  popular 
government  impossible  are  inconsistent  with 
[104] 


GOVERNMENT  PROCEDURE 

democracy.  They  only  serve  despotic  pur- 
poses and  must  be  abolished. 

There  is  little  need  of  holding  elections. 
There  is  little  advantage  in  discussing  public 
measures.  There  is  little  hope  for  the  public 
welfare  if,  when  the  people  have  spoken  by  ma- 
jority, the  majority  will  can  be  set  aside  by 
the  act  of  those  who  are  in  no  way  subject  to 
the  power  of  the  majority  vote. 

Real  self-government  calls  for  not  only  a 
reconstruction  of  the  forms  of  partisan  organi- 
zation, but  the  rebuilding  of  the  constitutional 
forms  of  public  procedure,  wherever  these 
forms  operate  to  defeat  public  will. 


[105] 


CHAPTER  X 

Militarism  and  Self-Government 

The  great  European  war,  the  prolonged  and 
repeated  revolutions  in  Mexico,  the  recent 
great  disturbance  of  the  usual  occupations  of 
the  people  together  with  the  transformation  of 
industrial  activities  which  has  been  occasioned 
by  the  demand  for  the  supplies,  the  weaponS( 
and  the  munitions  of  war,  and  the  unexpected 
revival  of  the  warlike  spirit  in  the  United 
States,  all  together  make  it  impossible  to  give 
any  satisfactory  consideiation  to  the  subject 
of  current  politics  without  a  brief  discussion  of 
militarism  and  self-government. 

It  has  been  seen  how  primitive  democracy 
was  destroyed  by  the  rise  of  militarism  in  the 
later  days  of  barbarism  because  battles  could 
not  be  managed  by  a  majority  vote,  and  how 
the  exigencies  of  battle  were  finally  extended 
to  control  all  of  the  collective  interests  of 
society. 

[106] 


MILITARISM  AND  SELF-GOVERNMENT 

It  was  out  of  these  necessities  of  war  that 
absolute  despotism  at  the  first  obtained  control 
in  the  world  and  it  has  so  far  been  the  unbroken 
record  of  all  the  wars  that  they  lead  to 
despotism. 

The  private  monopoly  of  land,  the  coming  of 
chattel  slavery,  the  subjection  of  woman,  the 
forcing  of  the  whole  world  into  the  two  classes 
of  soldiers  and  slaves,  and  then  lords  and  serfs 
and  finally  employers  and  employees — and  all 
the  time — the  one  class  of  the  people  made  up 
of  exploiters  and  the  other  of  the  victims  of 
exploitation,  were  all  of  them  the  fruits  of  war. 

The  joint  existence  of  military  efficiency  and 
democracy  is  utterly  impossible.  Every  step 
towards  the  efficiency  of  the  battalions  of  fight- 
ing men  is  a  step  away  from  self-governing 
institutions.  The  despots  have  always  been 
the  champions  of  an  effective  defensive  force 
against  a  foreign  enemy.  But  they  have  always 
used  these  defensive  forces  against  the  unarmed 
and  defenseless  people  Mathin  their  own  coun- 
tries in  order  to  compel  submission  to  industrial 
conditions  to  which  the  workers  would  not 
otherwise  submit. 

[107] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

There  never  was  a  slave  whose  bondage  was 
not  created  and  enforced  by  soldiers,  and  there 
never  have  been  great  military  establishments 
without,  sooner  or  later,  these  soldiers  have 
been  used  to  maintain  compulsory  industrial 
service,  at  the  first  to  provide  the  supplies  and 
the  munitions  of  war,  and  finally,  to  produce 
wealth  in  which  the  workers  had  no  ownership 
through  the  right  of  the  producer  and  from 
which  they  were  able  to  obtain  but  the  barest 
subsistence. 

This  is  why  in  all  ages  the  real  masters  of 
the  armies  have  been  the  real  masters  of  indus- 
try. The  war  lord  and  the  landlord  have  al- 
ways worn  the  same  clothing,  exercised  the 
same  powers,  in  fact,  have  been  the  same 
persons. 

Still  there  are  serious  problems  in  the  mod- 
ern world  which  must  be  solved  before  the 
armies  can  altogether  be  disbanded. 

In  the  final  triumph  of  industrial  justice  it 
is  inconceivable  that  the  prison,  the  policeman 
and  the  criminal  court  will  not  practically  dis- 
appear. But  no  one  proposes  their  immediate 
abolition.  The  real  problem  is  how  (1)  to  ex- 
[108] 


MILITARISM  AND  SELF-GOVERNMENT 

tend  industrial  justice  until  it  will  be  infinitely 
easier  to  get  things  by  earning  them  than  in 
any  other  way  and,  by  making  an  end  of  in- 
dustrial oppression  and  the  innumerable  petty 
personal  injuries  which  must  always  remain  as 
long  as  industrial  oppression  remains,  in  that 
way,  remove  all  incitement  to  criminal  action 
and  (2)  at  the  same  time,  by  improved  social 
and  sanitary  conditions  so  to  add  to  the  charac- 
ter, self-respect  and  power  of  self-restraint  as 
practically  to  make  an  end  of  the  crimes  of 
personal  degeneracy. 

While  this  work  is  going  forward,  the  police- 
man can  be  made  more  and  more  an  agent  in 
all  sorts  of  social  service.  He  can  be  made  an 
educational,  sanitary,  statistical  worker  as  well 
as  a  mere  restraining  officer.  With  the  aid  of 
schools  for  the  study  of  criminology,  sociology 
and  psychology,  as  schools  of  special  training 
for  these  social  servants — the  character  and 
the  service  of  the  police  department  can  be 
transformed,  and  in  the  end,  in  these  several 
ways,  the  brutal,  offensive  and  ignorant  club- 
swinging  guards  can  be  made  into  the  effective 
social  sen^ants  of  a  rational  and  orderly  com- 
munity. 

[109] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

Much  in  the  same  way,  the  army  as  a  power 
for  poHtical  wrong  doing,  must  be  captured 
and  used  for  social  betterment  in  such  a  way 
that  its  age-long  work  of  slaughter  and  oppres- 
sion may  be  changed  and  harnessed  at  last  to 
social  services  of  the  highest  order. 

It  must  be  admitted  that,  unfortunate  as  is  the 
presence  of  the  army  in  the  modern  world,  still 
no  one  country  is  likely  to  disarm  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  armed  forces  of  all  other  countries. 
It  is  not  likely  that  the  industrial  masters  of 
any  country,  with  vast  resources  and  great  in- 
dustrial power,  will  place  themselves  at  the 
mercy  of  the  armed  and  aggressive  industrial 
masters  of  any  other  country. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  no  one  nation  can 
have  the  power  to  make  an  end  of  international 
war  quite  independent  of  other  nations.  Very 
few  really  thoughtful  people  would  contend 
that  all  the  national  governments  of  all  the 
earth  could  make  an  end  of  war  except  by  the 
creation  of  a  central  world  government  with 
authority  to  investigate  and  to  settle  all  ques- 
tions of  international  controversy  and  espe- 
cially including  questions  of  international 
trade  and  international  credit,  and  with  a  force 

[110] 


MILITARISM  AND  SELF-GOVERNMENT 

sufficient  to  compel  obedience  to  the  terms  of 
such  settlements. 

It  is  quite  improbable  that  any  nation  will 
cease  to  make  preparation  to  defend  its  own 
borders  until  some  central  power  shall  be  es- 
tablished, able  to  defend  all  borders,  and  so 
constituted  that  there  will  be  every  reason  to 
believe  that  it  will  defend  all  borders.  That 
once  done,  the  military  establishments  of  all  the 
separate  nations  could  reasonably  be  aban- 
doned, and  an  international  army  and  navy  less 
than  that  maintained  at  present  by  any  one  of 
the  great  powers  would  more  than  suffice  for 
all  the  world. 

But  no  such  world  power  can  be  easily  estab- 
lished so  long  as  the  industrial  masters  are  per- 
mitted to  exploit  the  workers  of  their  own 
countries  and  are  forced  to  do  so  under  com- 
mercial conditions  which  compel  them  all 
the  time  to  seek  to  exploit,  through  interna- 
tional trade,  the  workers  of  other  countries  as 
well. 

The  whole  question  of  democracy  or  despot- 
ism in  world  politics  is  involved  first  of  all 
in  the  triumph  of  industrial  democracy,  and, 
[111] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

hence,  of  industrial  justice  in  the  domestic  poli- 
tics of  all  the  great  nations  of  the  earth. 

Until  this  shall  come  to  be,  whatever  may 
be  our  wishes,  a  military  establishment  of  some 
sort  in  relation  to  foreign  affairs  seems  to  be 
unavoidable,  just  as  a  police  department  of 
some  sort  is  unavoidable  in  the  city  streets. 

But  this  does  not  mean  that  while  working 
men  are  earning  fifty  dollars  a  month  in  indus- 
trial employments,  the  army  shall  be  made  up 
of  men  willing  to  be  employed  for  thirteen 
dollars  a  month. 

It  does  not  mean  that  the  army  must  be  so 
organized  that  idleness  and  contempt  for  labor 
shall  be  instilled  into  the  men  of  arms. 

It  does  not  mean  that  camp  conditions  shall 
be  maintained  detrimental  to  the  highest  well- 
being. 

It  does  not  mean  that  a  term  in  the  military 
service  shall  train  men  to  regard  lightly  the  vir- 
tue of  women  or  to  disqualify  them,  either 
physically  or  morally,  for  family  life  and  for 
the  social  services  of  fatherhood. 

It  does  not  mean  that  the  army  is  to  be 
organized  and  used  by  the  industrial  masters 
[112] 


MILITARISM  AND  SELF-GOVERNMENT 

to  oppress  labor  at  home  under  the  pretense  of 
its  existence  for  defense  against  a  foreign  foe. 

It  does  not  mean  that  the  provision  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  that  "the 
right  to  keep  and  bear  arms  shall  be  neither 
abridged  nor  denied,"  shall  longer  be  trampled 
under  foot  both  by  industrial  despots  and  by 
the  public  authorities  corruptly  controlled  by 
these  industrial  despots. 

It  does  not  mean  that  the  weapons  of  war 
shall  be  provided  by  private  contract  with  inex- 
cusable private  graft  branded  on  every  gun  in 
the  army  and  on  every  warship  in  the  navy, 
while  both  are  produced  by  alien  workers  em- 
ployed where  trades  unions  are  forbidden  and 
where  these  men  toil  twelve  hours  a  day,  seven 
days  in  the  week  and  all  the  weeks  there  are 
in  the  year. 

It  does  not  mean  that  the  army  shall  be  fed 
by  private  contract  on  the  embalmed  beef  of 
the  very  monopolies  which  conspire  to  produce 
war  with  a  resulting  mortality  in  the  ranks  of 
American  soldiers  in  the  time  of  war  of  four- 
teen dead  by  sanitary  neglect  to  the  one  slain 
in  actual  battle. 

It  does  not  mean  that  there  is  justification 

[113] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

for  maintaining  a  military  camp  and  a  detach- 
ment of  soldiers  at  the  city  border  of  every 
great  industrial  center  in  America. 

It  does  not  mean  that  there  is  justification 
for  putting  every  great  factory  in  this  country 
on  the  "war  maps"  of  the  army,  and  the  build- 
ing of  the  modern  factories  as  fortified  places 
in  the  very  hearts  of  these  great  industrial 
centers. 

American  factories  will  need  no  defense  if 
they  treat  justly  the  American  workers.  They 
do  not  deserve  defense, — certainly  the  nation 
cannot  afford  to  maintain  an  army  for  their 
defense, — if  it  is  proposed  to  extend  to  all  in- 
dustries the  industrial  hell  established  now  by 
the  steel  mills  engaged  in  the  production  of  the 
weapons  and  munitions  of  war  on  a  larger  scale 
than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

The  building  of  the  Panama  Canal  has  dem- 
onstrated that  the  army  officer  can  be  a  useful 
citizen  in  time  of  peace.  It  did  more  than  that. 
It  demonstrated  that  a  working  force  of  forty- 
five  thousand  men  could  be  organized  on  the 
basis  of  voluntary  employment  and  filled  with 
the  enthusiasm  of  a  great  army  struggling  for 

[114] 


MILITARISM  AND  SELF-GOVERNMENT 

the  nation's  honor  and  for  the  common  good. 
It  demonstrated  that  such  a  vast  undertaking 
could  house  and  feed  and  care  for  itself;  that 
sanitary  conditions  could  be  established  in  the 
face  of  the  greatest  difficulties,  that  the  cost  of 
living  could  be  enormously  reduced,  that  the 
fraudulent  contractor,  grafter  and  adventurer 
could  be  excluded  from  any  share  in  a  great 
public  undertaking,  that  the  usual  disorder  of 
a  frontier  encampment  could  be  avoided  and 
schools,  libraries,  concerts,  baths  and  firesides 
could  make  themselves  the  sole  successors  of 
the  old  disorderly  houses,  gambling  resorts  and 
drinking  saloons. 

It  would  have  been  an  easy  matter  to  have 
doubled  the  number  of  workers,  to  have 
equipped  all  for  military  service,  to  have  given 
certain  hours  to  military  drill,  to  have  produced 
an  army  of  the  highest  character  and  capacity 
and  to  have  made  an  army,  as  well  as  an  army 
officer,  of  some  use  in  time  of  peace  as  well  as  in 
time  of  war. 

The  reclaiming  of  arid  lands,  the  storing  of 
the  flood  waters,  the  draining  of  the  swamps, 
the  forcing  backward  of  the  seas  from  the  in- 
valuable tide  lands,  the  opening  up  of  mines 
[115] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

and  the  putting  of  all  these  into  a  condition  of 
highest  productivity, — all  involve  vast  expendi- 
tures. They  offer  the  opportunity  for  the  em- 
ployment of  great  armies  of  workers,  not  only 
in  bringing  these  natural  resources  into  use, 
but  in  their  operation  afterwards.  These  things 
would  make  available  natural  resources  more 
vast  than  are  offered  by  all  the  lands  now 
drenched  in  blood  in  a  struggle  for  their  pos- 
session in  Europe.  It  would  be  a  peaceful 
conquest  at  home,  greater  than  that  ever  ac- 
complished by  any  war  of  invasion  at  any  time 
in  the  history  of  man. 

It  could  be  undertaken  during  those  months 
of  the  year  when  there  are  vast  armies  of  the 
unemployed.  Military  training  could  be  given 
in  all  the  camps.  All  the  workers  could  be 
permanently  equipped  with  weapons  of  the 
most  modern  make  for  their  own  permanent 
possession.  All  these  works  could  be  closed 
during  the  busy  seasons,  and  the  industrial 
army  at  once  transferred  to  the  wheat  fields, 
to  the  orchards  and  to  all  other  places  where 
part  of  the  year  the  work  is  too  much  and  part 
of  the  year,  not  enough,  for  regular  all  the 
year  round  employment. 

[116] 


MILITARISM  AND  SELF-GOVERNMENT 

All  this  could  be  undertaken  and  the  cost 
of  the  military  establishment  not  at  all  increased 
if  the  graft  of  the  private  exploiter  could  be 
excluded  from  this  problem.  And  in  every 
such  undertaking  the  social,  educational  and 
sanitary  conditions  of  the  Panama  could  be 
reproduced. 

In  fact,  the  industrial  enterprises  of  such  an 
army  would  make  the  army  more  than  self- 
sustaining.  By  providing  at  reasonable  wages 
for  all  the  unemployed,  by  providing  a  means 
by  which  savings  deposits  could  be  regularly 
invested  by  them  in  the  purchase  of  homes,  so 
created  as  to  provide  for  self-supporting  fam- 
ilies, in  the  end,  the  cost  of  the  army  would 
entirely  disappear,  while  years  of  service  in 
such  an  army  would  not  only  qualify  for  self- 
employing  industry  but  provide  the  very  equip- 
ment for  the  maintenance  of  such  a  home. 

Such  an  army  would  not  mean  the  develop- 
ment of  brutality.  Such  an  army  would  not  be 
tempted  to  seek  for  foreign  war.  The  fruits 
and  the  victories  of  peaceful  conquest  would  be 
too  vast  and  too  certain  to  tempt  the  army,  the 
army  officer,  or  the  nation  to  substitute  destruc- 

[117] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

tive  warfare  away  from  home  for  productive 
enterprise  at  home. 

An  army  so  equipped  and  so  employed  could 
never  be  used  to  coerce  labor.  The  whole  ques- 
tion of  wages,  hours,  and  the  general  conditions 
of  employment  would  be  solved  for  all  labor, 
for  then  no  private  employer  could  keep  his 
working  force  unless  the  wages,  hours  and  gen- 
eral treatment  were  as  good  as  in  this  industrial 
army  whose  doors  would  be  always  open  for 
the  wronged  or  the  excluded  worker  from 
every  field,  and  that,  without  the  loss  of 
citizenship  or  the  abridgement  of  the  elective 
franchise. 

Such  an  army  would  not  be  a  social  danger 
to  the  community  where  it  might  be  stationed. 
Neither  war  babies  nor  ruined  womanhood 
would  follow  in  its  wake. 

Such  an  army  could  not  be  used  for  the  pur- 
poses of  industrial  oppression. 

Such  an  army  would  defend  this  nation 
against  all  others  with  a  devotion  never  shown 
by  any  body  of  fighting  men  at  any  time  or 
anywhere.  Such  an  army  would  never  again 
tempt  the  great  private  interests  to  foment 
war  as  a  means  of  private  advantage. 
[118] 


MILITARISM  AND  SELF-GOVERNMENT 

Until  universal  peace  can  be  made  possible, 
if  there  must  be  armies,  give  us  such  an  army. 

Until  then,  "Not  another  dollar  and  not  an- 
other man"  ought  to  be  the  watchword  of  de- 
mocracy. Until  the  nation  will  safeguard 
itself  against  the  misuse  of  the  army  by  its 
enemies  at  home  it  would  be  better  for  the  real 
democrat  to  take  his  chances  with  foreign  foes 
rather  than  deliberately  to  put  his  neck  com- 
pletely under  the  yoke  of  the  industrial  despot. 

Such  an  army  would  not  be  the  tool  of  the 
despots.  It  would  hasten  the  coming  of  indus- 
trial democracy  as  could  no  other  single  thing. 

But  industrial  democracy  means  the  end  of 
war  because  it  will  be  the  beginning  of  world 
wide  justice. 

Political  parties  of  some  sort  cannot  be 
avoided.  They  must  be  reorganized  and  made 
the  servants  of  the  popular  will,  not  the  tools 
of  despotism. 

Governments  of  some  sort  cannot  be 
avoided.  Their  organization  and  manage- 
ment must  be  so  reconstructed  that  the  pop- 
ular will  cannot  be  thwarted  by  obstructive 
methods  of  government  procedure. 
[119] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

National  defensive  forces  of  some  sort  can- 
not be  avoided  as  long  as  chaos  rules  the  world 
in  international  affairs.  The  men  of  the  armies 
and  of  the  navies  of  all  the  world  ought  to  be 
made  useful  producers  in  time  of  peace.  The 
equipments,  the  munitions  and  the>  supplies 
ought  to  be  produced  by  public  enterprises 
more  largely  benefited  by  maintaining  peace 
than  by  resort  to  war,  not  by  private  monopo- 
lies interested  in  fomenting  war. 

The  effort  to  secure  these  results  involves  all 
the  great  problems  of  current  politics. 


[120] 


PART  III 
IMPROVED  MACHINERY 


CHAPTER  XI 

Universal  Education  in  Politics 

An  ignorant  vote  may  be  as  disastrous  as  a 
corrupt  one.  Universal  suffrage  presupposes 
universal  intelligence.  Popular  institutions 
and  popular  ignorance  are  utterly  incompati- 
ble. In  all  countries  where  popular  institu- 
tions prevail,  popular  education  is  undertaken. 

Where  despotism  prevails,  general  igno- 
rance in  the  community  is  as  essential  to  the 
continuance  of  despotism  as  is  general  intelli- 
gence necessary  to  the  success  of  democracy. 

Public  schools,  wherever  they  exist,  are 
given  support  on  the  assumption  that  general 
intelligence  is  a  public  necessity  under  demo- 
cratic forms  of  government.  But  notwith- 
standing this,  in  these  schools  there  are  no 
attempts  to  provide  for  the  particular  study  of 
those  particular  questions  which  may  at  any 
time  come  up  for  settlement  at  the  ballot- 
box. 

[123] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

It  is  everywhere  insisted  that  education  is 
necessary  in  order  that  there  may  be  just  and 
efficient  political  activities.  While  the  public 
school  is  provided  for  the  sake  of  intelligence 
in  politics,  the  schools  are  teaching  almost 
everything  with  the  exception  of  politics. 

Frequently  campaigns  of  education  are 
undertaken  prior  to,  or  as  a  part  of,  the  usual 
political  campaigns.  But  such  campaigns  are 
usually  financed  by  great  private  interests. 
The  persons  or  corporations  who  furnish  the 
money  are  usually  interested  in  misleading, 
rather  than  in  accurately  informing,  the  public 
on  the  merits  of  whatever  questions  may  be  up 
for  settlement. 

Most  of  the  State  Universities  in  America, 
and  special  departments  of  practically  all  mod- 
ern governments,  are  doing  work  of  great 
value  in  special  investigations  of  topics  of  gen- 
eral social  and  industrial  importance.  In  con- 
nection with  these  investigations,  it  has  be- 
come an  established  custom  to  pubHsh  regu- 
larly, or  at  frequent  intei'vals,  bulletins  con- 
taining special  information  on  whatever  topics 
have  been  under  investigation.    These  bulletins 

[124] 


UNIVERSAL  EDUCATION  IN  POLITICS 

cover  a  great  variety  of  topics,  but  they  do  not 
include  expert  investigations  and  special  pub- 
lications on  any  of  the  topics,  about  which  the 
people  are  called  upon  to  vote. 

An  exception  must  be  made  to  the  foregoing 
statement.  Some  of  the  States,  where  the  ini- 
tiative and  referendum  prevail,  do  publish  a 
small  pamphlet,  just  prior  to  each  election, 
containing  controversial  matter,  specially  pre- 
pared by  the  supporters  and  opponents  of  the 
special  legislation  so  submitted  to  a  popular 
vote.  But  the  trouble  with  these  publications 
is  that,  in  actual  experience,  they  raise  more 
questions  than  they  answer,  and  they  are  pub- 
lished so  close  to  the  holding  of  the  elections, 
that  there  is  no  time  for  any  general  investi- 
gation on  the  part  of  the  voter,  as  to  the  cor- 
rectness of  the  information  given  or  the  wisdom 
of  the  measures  proposed. 

Another  exception  should  be  mentioned  in 
the  work  of  some  of  the  State  Universities  in 
their  special  Bureaus  of  Legislation.  The  Bu- 
reau of  Wisconsin  University  has  rendered 
important  services  in  gathering  expert  infor- 
mation for  the  use  of  legislators  and  others, 
interested  in  the  improvement  of  the  laws.    It 

[125] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

also  publishes,  at  irregular  iiitei^vals,  valuable 
documents  on  topics  of  legislative  interest  and 
these  are  mailed,  at  public  expense,  to  such 
persons  within  the  state  as  may  ask  for  them, 
after  the  same  manner  as  is  the  case  with 
other  University  publications. 

It  would  seem  that  some  means  ought  to  be 
provided  for  placing,  at  all  times,  the  widest 
and  most  accurate  information  possible  within 
the  reach  of  all  the  people,  covering  all  the 
questions  which  are  likely  to  come  up  for  action 
in  the  elections. 

This  information  should  be  presented,  as 
far  as  possible,  without  bias,  and  should  be 
provided  by  those  who  are  experts  on  the  topics 
under  consideration,  and  be  posted  directly,  in 
regular  monthly  or  weekly  publications,  to  all 
voters. 

Such  an  undertaking  could  be  properly 
made  the  work  of  a  Department  of  Political 
Science,  in  the  usual  State  University  or, 
where  this  is  not  practicable,  a  Government 
Bureau  could  be  specially  organized  and 
equipped  for  the  purpose.  Such  a  bulletin 
would  not  need  to  be  a  large  one.    It  should 

[126] 


UNIVERSAL  EDUCATION  IN  POLITICS 

provide  for  direct  and  expert  answers  to  ques- 
tions of  inquiry,  covering  all  matters  relating 
to  politics  and  in  which  the  general  public 
would  be  likely  to  be  interested.  On  questions 
of  controversy,  discussion  should  be  entered 
upon,  only  on  a  petition  of  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  citizens. 

There  are  many  proposals  which  legislators 
would  be  glad  to  see  investigated.  This  would 
be  specially  true  of  such  matters  as  they  do 
not  yet  feel  prepared  to  vote  upon.  The  bul- 
letins now  published  in  connection  with  the 
elections,  v/here  the  initiative  and  referendum 
are  in  operation,  are  only  available  after  the 
laws  have  been  drafted  and  within  a  few  days 
prior  to  the  time  when  the  citizen  is  called  upon 
to  decide  for  or  against  the  measures  already 
under  discussion. 

For  the  sake  of  general  intelligence  it  would 
be  a  wiser  plan  if  such  a  measure  as  would  be 
most  likely  to  be  proposed  under  an  initiative 
petition  should  not  at  the  first  be  presented  to 
the  individual  citizen  by  a  petition  for  its 
enactment  into  law.  A  more  rational  proced- 
ure would  be  to  petition  for  the  special  investi- 

[127] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

gation  and  discussion  of  such  proposals.  Those 
in  favor  of  such  a  measure  and  those  in  opposi- 
tion, each  could  be  given  certain  limited  space 
in  the  bulletin. 

This  special  advantage  of  expert  informa- 
tion as  to  the  facts,  presented  in  parallel  col- 
umns by  those  both  for  and  against,  could  con- 
tinue the  discussion  under  the  direction  of  per- 
sons selected  by  both  sides  in  the  controversy, 
and  each  month  or  week  the  information  and 
the  argument  would  go  directly  to  all  voters, 
and  so  continuously  until  the  study  had  been 
carried  to  that  point,  that  public  information 
and  public  sentiment  would  justify  a  petition 
for  a  vote  on  a  definite  measure  involving  the 
settlement  at  the  ballot-box  of  the  question  in 
controversy,  unless  perchance  the  legislature 
should  yield  to  a  unanimity  of  sentiment,  as  a 
result  of  investigation  and  discussion,  and 
enact  the  measure  without  a  direct  reference  to 
a  popular  vote. 

Such  a  bulletin  could  be  made  to  serve  other 
and  important  purposes.  It  has  been  seen 
how  uncertain  and  frequently  how  misleading 
are  party  platform  declarations,  where  a  multi- 

.     [  128  ] 


UNIVERSAL  EDUCATION  IN  POLITICS 

tude  of  questions  as  well  as  a  multitude  of  can- 
didates are  all  struggling  together  for  a  hear- 
ing, in  the  midst  of  such  confusion  as  makes 
either  a  fair  hearing  or  an  intelligent  vote  on 
all  measures  and  on  all  candidates  utterly 
impossible. 

With  such  a  bulletin,  the  general  public 
would  not  depend  upon  the  dictation  of  great 
private  interests,  the  exigencies  of  political 
parties,  or  the  whims  or  personal  ambitions  of 
candidates  for  office  in  making  up  the  issues 
to  be  determined  in  any  given  election.  These 
bulletins  could  be  used  for  announcing  candi- 
dates and  each  candidate  could  be  given  an 
opportunity  to  declare  himself,  for  or  against 
measures  so  proposed,  and  in  this  way  the 
subject  matter  of  the  questions  in  issue  in  any 
particular  campaign  would  be  determined  by 
the  people.  The  position  of  each  candidate 
regarding  such  measures  could  be  determined 
by  himself. 

Under  such  an  arrangement,  there  would  be 
no  dodging  of  issues,  no  uncertainty  and  no 
confusion  as  to  the  nature  of  the  questions 
voted  on,  or  the  positions  of  the  several  candi- 
dates with  regard  to  them.   Such  declarations 

[129] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

could  be  direct,  simple  and  unmistakable. 
Party  platforms  would  cease  altogether  to  be 
a  means  of  misleading,  confusing  or  avoiding 
public  measures  of  importance. 

As  to  the  expense  of  such  a  publication,  it 
would  not  need  to  require  a  very  serious  ex- 
penditure of  money.  It  would  be  much  less 
expensive  than  are  the  present  campaigns, 
much  more  effective  in  spreading  rehable  in- 
formation on  topics  under  controversy,  and  the 
information  would  reach  the  people  in  a  man- 
ner which  would  protect  them  from  being 
either  corrupted  or  misled. 

At  the  beginning,  such  a  publication  could 
be  established  by  an  independent  association  of 
citizens,  but,  properly,  it  should  belong  to  the 
Department  of  Public  Education,  and  the  ex- 
pense be  paid  from  the  public  funds  for  a  really 
reliable  and  most  important  public  service. 

Such  an  expenditure  would  save  to  the  state 
over  and  over  again  all  it  would  cost  in  the 
economies  resulting  from  an  improved,  more 
just  and  more  efficient  administration  of  pub- 
lic affairs.  If  such  a  publication  were  given 
the  monopoly  of  the  legal  advertising  required 

[130] 


UNIVERSAL  EDUCATION  IN  POLITICS 

under  the  law  it  would  at  once  pay  all  the  cost 
of  its  publication  and  realize  a  considerable 
saving  to  the  state. 

These,  then,  are  the  advantages  of  such  a 
proposal: 

Under  such  an  arrangement,  the  people  of 
the  state  which  would  adopt  and  carry  out 
such  a  plan  of  continuous  state-wide  study  of 
important  public  measures  would  become  the 
best  informed  and  the  most  trustworthy  of  all 
of  the  people  of  all  the  states.  Once  this  was 
successfully  undertaken  in  any  state,  it  would 
rapidly  spread  to  all  the  states  and  to  the  na- 
tion in  all  matters  of  national  or  of  interna- 
tional importance. 

Corrupt  campaign  funds  would  not  only  lose 
their  power  to  mislead,  but  would  lose  all  ex- 
cuse for  their  existence  and  would  disappear. 

Legislative  bodies  would  be  delivered  from 
the  presence  of  the  lobby,  because  the  lobbies 
would  lose  all  power  to  control. 

A  hasty  and  ill-advised  referendum  would 
become  impossible.  No  one  would  sign  a  peti- 
tion for  a  referendum  on  a  measure  which  had 
not  already  been  widely  discussed.   If  the  dis- 

[131] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

cussion  turned  against  the  proposal,  that  would 
be  the  end  of  it.  If  the  discussion  turned  in 
its  favor,  the  signatures  could  be  easily  ob- 
tained, and  a  referendum  so  initiated  would  be 
quite  certain  to  carry. 

Party  conventions,  with  all  their  possibilities 
for  evil  would  become  entirely  without  power 
in  the  matter  of  real  platform  making. 

In  the  matter  of  the  public  measures  to  be 
considered,  the  intrigue  of  the  party  caucus, 
the  confusion  of  the  party  convention,  the  con- 
nivance of  party  committees,  the  betrayals  of 
party  candidates,  would  all  of  them  lose  their 
power  to  do  harm  in  such  a  state. 


[182] 


CHAPTER  XII 

An  Established  Citizenship 

No  other  single  thing  is  of  so  much  impor- 
tance to  one  as  a  voter,  as  is  his  right  to  vote. 
In  order  to  protect  this  right  and  to  avoid  fraud- 
ulent and  irregular  voting,  systems  of  regis- 
tration have  been  estabhshed.  Under  these 
systems  the  same  voter  registers  his  citizenship 
over  and  over  again  at  stated  intervals  through- 
out his  life-time. 

In  order  to  have  one's  vote  counted,  at  its 
full  value,  it  is  necessary  first  to  register,  after- 
wards to  vote  in  a  primary  election,  and  then 
again  in  a  general  election.  This  means  three 
separate  engagements  on  as  many  dates.  Busy 
people  and  persons  holding  positions  which 
take  them  away  from  home,  find  this  a  serious 
draft  upon  their  time  and  attention. 

Large  numbers  of  persons  otherwise  quali- 
fied are  unable  to  vote  because  of  such  unrea- 
sonable   requirements.     Moreover,    working- 

[133] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

men  following  the  demands  of  their  employ- 
ments find  themselves  in  large  numbers  dis- 
qualified as  voters  because  there  are  no  means 
provided  under  the  law  by  which  such  persons 
can  establish  and  maintain  a  legal  residence 
at  any  particular  place.  If  such  a  one  is  able 
to  do  so  and  is  employed  at  a  distance  from 
home,  in  order  to  have  his  vote  count,  he  must 
lose  the  time  and  incur  the  expense  of  going  to 
his  home  three  times  in  order  to  have  his  wishes 
recorded  once. 

The  only  place  a  working  man  can  sell  his 
labor  is  at  those  points  where  there  is  a  demand 
for  it.  Under  modern  industry,  this  involves 
frequent  removals  with  the  result  that  large 
numbers  of  men  who  are  most  vitally  interested 
in  public  affairs  are  unable  to  have  any  share 
in  their  management. 

One's  membership  as  a  shareholder  in  a  busi- 
ness company  or  as  a  member  of  a  church,  fra- 
ternal society,  labor  union,  or  in  a  social  or 
commercial  club,  when  once  established  can  be 
maintained  without  such  needless  regulations, 
as  have  been  established,  sometimes  with  the 
purpose  and  always  with  the  result  of  hamper- 

[134] 


AN  ESTABLISHED  CITIZENSHIP 

ing  one's  right  to  be  heard  as  a  member  of 
the  civic  community.  One's  membership  in 
society  and  his  right  to  vote  as  a  member  of 
society  ought  to  be  established  in  such  a  way 
that  when  once  estabhshed  it  should  stand  for 
all  time  without  further  notice  or  attention  on 
his  own  part,  and  certainly  without  the  fre- 
quent repetition  of  its  registration. 

Great  pains  have  been  taken  in  the  registra- 
tion and  in  the  preservation  of  the  books  of 
registration  covering  titles  to  real  estate. 

It  would  seem  that  each  county  could  pro- 
vide for  a  registration  of  one's  citizenship  after 
the  same  manner  as  deeds  are  registered,  or 
recorded,  and  when  once  so  recorded,  the  rec- 
ord should  stand  without  further  amendment 
or  repetition  until  the  rights  thereunder  should 
terminate. 

Just  as  land  is  specifically  described  in  such 
registrations  in  order  that  each  plot  may  be 
recorded  with  a  description  which  will  not  over- 
lap or  be  overlapped  by  any  like  description 
of  other  tracts,  so  this  registration  of  the  indi- 
vidual voter,  on  his  coming  of  age,  or  on  his 
desire  to  establish  his  first  residence  as  a  voter 

[135] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

in  a  particular  place,  could  include  the  signa- 
ture of  the  voter,  his  age,  occupation,  nation- 
ality, height,  weight,  color  of  his  eyes,  and  his 
photograph. 

He  could  be  given  a  card  certificate  of  citi- 
zenship containing  a  duplicate  of  the  matter 
recorded,  and  a  further  copy  could  be  made 
and  be  recorded  and  preserved  at  the  state 
capital.  There  are  many  reasons  for  fihng  a 
further  duplicate  at  the  national  capital,  but 
his  rights  as  a  citizen  in  any  particular  state 
would  be  sufficiently  guarded  without  such  a 
national  registration,  desirable  as  that  would 
be  for  other  reasons. 

On  the  removal  of  one's  citizenship  to  some 
other  precinct  or  county  in  the  state,  the  old 
registration  could  be  cancelled  before  a  new 
one  would  be  made  possible.  On  establishing 
his  citizenship  in  any  other  state,  or  on  the 
death  of  the  voter,  that  fact  should  be  properly 
certified  and  should  be  recorded  on  the  regis- 
ters, both  in  his  own  county  and  at  the  capital. 

A  necessary  part  of  every  death  and  burial 
certificate  should  be  this  certificate  of  citizen- 
ship attached  to,  and  made  a  part  of,  this  final 
record  of  every  citizen  and  the  name  removed 
[136] 


AN  ESTABLISHED  CITIZENSHIP 

from  the  voters'  list.  But  so  long  as  a  regis- 
tration stands,  the  voter  should  never  be  re- 
quired again  to  register  his  citizenship,  or  be 
required  to  prove  his  right  to  vote  by  any  other 
means  than  by  the  showing  of  his  certificate 
and  thereby  estabHshing  his  identity. 

At  elections  the  county  officers  would  furnish 
to  each  precinct  the  registrations  for  that  pre- 
cinct, and  when  a  voter  would  present  his  vote 
he  would  present  also  his  duplicate  certificate 
of  registration,  which  would  at  once  be  com- 
pared with  the  duplicate  records  and  the  two 
being  found  descriptive  of  the  voter  his  right 
to  vote  would  be  established. 

In  connection  with  such  a  system  of  regis- 
tration, births  and  deaths  would  be  regularly 
certified  and  certificates  regularly  entered  as  a 
necessary  part  of  the  personal  record  of  the 
citizenship  of  each  person  so  entered  on  the 
public  register. 

In  this  way  all  one's  rights  as  a  citizen  would 
be  provided  for  in  the  most  simple  and  direct 
manner.  Therefore,  there  would  be  every  rea- 
son for  enacting  and  enforcing  very  severe 
penalties  for  all  efforts  to  duplicate  registra- 
tions, to  falsify  records,  to  make  false  reports, 

[137] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

or  to  mutilate  or  destroy  any  such  public  rec- 
ords. The  penalty  should  be  equally  severe 
for  voting  in  one  state  while  holding  an  uncan- 
celled certificate  of  citizenship  in  any  other. 

The  advantages  of  this  system  of  registra- 
tion are  very  many.  In  some  countries  they 
have  old-age  pensions.  In  all  countries  old-age 
pensions  are  sure  to  be  established  at  an  earty 
date.  Such  a  record  of  citizenship  will  be  most 
valuable  in  securing  one's  right  to  participate 
in  their  benefits. 

The  problem  of  the  unemployed  is  each  j'^ear 
becoming  more  serious.  Such  a  certificate  of 
citizenship  would  be,  and  ought  to  be,  entitled 
to  special  consideration  in  arranging  for  em- 
ployment or  for  any  other  necessary  provision 
which  society  may  make  for  the  individual  use 
and  benefit  of  those  who  are  citizens. 

In  some  municipalities,  the  income  from 
publicly  owned  forests  is  now  paying  all  pub- 
lic charges  and  an  annual  dividend  to  the  citi- 
zens besides.  Publicly  owned  ground  rents 
and  publicly  owned  industrial  and  social  serv- 
ices will,  at  an  early  day,  make  all  governments 
dividend  paying  bodies,  as  against  tax-gather- 

[138] 


AN  ESTABLISHED  CITIZENSHIP 

ing  agencies.  Then  this  certificate  of  citizen- 
ship will  have  the  same  value  as  a  stock  certifi- 
cate in  a  private  company.  It  will  be  one's 
certificate  of  his  single  equal  share  in  the  great 
business  body  called  the  state  by  virtue  of 
which  he  will  be  heard  in  its  affairs  and  will 
share  in  its  benefits.  He  will  have  a  stake  in 
his  country. 

Finally,  such  a  registration  would  be  so  com- 
plete that  one's  right  as  a  voter  would  be  fully 
protected  while  no  one  could  repeatedly  vote 
at  the  same  place  or  at  different  places  at  the 
same  elections,  or  impersonate  those  either 
absent  or  dead,  and  it  would  make  unnecessary 
all  loss  of  time  and  all  expenses  incurred  in  the 
frequent  and  unnecessary  registrations  which 
now  prevail. 


[189] 


CHAPTER  XIII 

A  Share  in  the  Government  by  All  the 
Governed 

In  the  later  days  of  barbarism,  the  kings  fre- 
quently submitted  questions  of  public  impor- 
tance to  the  tribesmen.  The  tribesmen  had  an 
equal  opportunity  to  vote  "Yes"  or  "No"  on 
the  questions  submitted. 

It  has  been  shown  in  another  place  that 
under  current  politics  the  modern  voter  is  little 
more  than  a  servant  of  a  political  machine 
which  determines  for  him  what  the  issues  shall 
be  in  any  given  election.  All  that  he  can  do 
is  to  vote  "Yes"  or  "No"  on  the  questions  sub- 
mitted, and  usually  he  must  do  that  with  the 
certain  knowledge  that  the  modern  king  is  the 
personal  agent  of  some  private  monopoly,  and, 
hence,  the  spokesman  of  a  corrupt  machine. 

In  every  parliamentary  body,  the  right  to 
make  motions,  to  propose  resolutions,  that  is,  to 
share  in  the  raising  of  questions  as  well  as  to 
[140] 


A  SHARE  IN  THE  GOVERNMENT 

share   in  the   settling   of  them,   is  of  great 
importance. 

The  machinery  of  self-government  will  not 
be  complete  until  groups  of  citizens  can  have 
a  voice  in  the  management  of  their  own  affairs 
by  raising  questions  which  to  them  seem  impor- 
tant without  waiting  for  the  consent  of  any 
party  organization,  or  the  cooperation  of  any 
political  machine  of  any  sort. 

It  is  unquestionably  true  that  the  general 
public  is  frequently  anxious  that  certain  things 
shall  be  done,  while  a  corrupt  machine  is  able 
to  postpone  the  public  hearing  and  in  so  doing 
perpetuate  the  doing  of  a  wrong  thing  under 
the  pretense  of  doing  nothing  at  all.  In  those 
countries  where  the  initiative  has  been  estab- 
lished this  delay  is  at  once  made  impossible. 
The  friends  of  such  a  measure  may  write  the 
law  in  the  form  in  which  they  wish  it  enacted 
and,  on  securing  a  certain  number  of  signa- 
tures, say  five  percent  of  the  total  votes  in  the 
previous  general  election,  the  measure  must  be 
submitted  to  a  direct  vote  of  the  people  and,  in 
that  manner,  may  be  enacted  immediately  into 
law. 

[141] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

The  referendum  is  veiy  closely  related  and 
should  be  treated  in  connection  with  the  initia- 
tive. This  is  a  provision  that  whenever  a  legis- 
lative body  shall  enact  any  measure  into  law, 
should  a  petition  be  filed  after  the  same  manner 
as  in  proposing  a  new  measure  and  within  a 
fixed  period,  then  the  legislative  enactment  is 
not  to  become  law  until  a  public  vote  is  taken. 
If  the  majority  vote  shall  confirm  the  act  of 
the  legislature,  the  measure  becomes  a  law, 
otherwise  it  has  been  defeated  by  popular 
vote. 

The  advantages  of  the  initiative  and  the  ref- 
erendum are  many  and  important: — 

1.  Under  it,  no  legislative  machine  can  long 
obstruct  the  public  will. 

2.  No  legislative  machine  can  betray  the 
public  good  in  behalf  of  private  interests  by 
enacting  vicious  legislation,  because  any  at- 
tempt in  that  direction  will  be  overtaken  by 
referring  such  matters  to  a  public  vote. 

3.  No  legislative  machine  can  delay  progress 
by  refusing  action  on  matters  of  importance 
because  under  the  initiative  any  such  measure 
can  be  forced  to  a  vote  entirely  independent  of 

[  142  ] 


A  SHARE  IN  THE  GOVERNMENT 

great  private  interests,  and  in  spite  of  their 
corrupting  influence  in  legislative  bodies. 

4.  All  measures  so  presented  are  presented 
entirely  independent  of  any  other  measure  so 
that  a  citizen  can  vote  for  what  he  wants  on 
one  matter,  without  being  compelled  to  vote  for 
what  he  does  not  want  on  something  else. 

5.  All  measures  so  presented  are  presented 
entirely  independent  of  all  candidates  for  office 
so  that  a  citizen  can  vote  for  what  he  wants  on 
a  public  measure  without  being  required  to  vote 
for  a  candidate  whom  he  does  not  want. 

6.  The  fruits  of  a  victory  under  a  refer- 
endum vote  cannot  easily  be  made  into  political 
capital  for  the  benefit  of  a  partisan  machine. 

It  is  usually  provided  that  the  referendum 
shall  not  apply  to  measures  of  urgent  and 
immediate  importance.  Where  such  laws  exist 
they  should  be  amended  and  when  new  laws  of 
the  sort  are  enacted,  they  should  provide  that 
laws  declared  to  be  urgent  should  be  limited 
solely  to  measures  involving  disastrous  floods, 
fires,  earthquakes,  contagion  or  plague,  and 
should  not  involve  property  rights,  the  confer- 
ring of  franchises,  the  usual  appropriations  of 
[143] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

public  funds,  or  in  any  way  affect  the  regular 
and,  permanent  necessities  of  society.  It  should 
further  provide  that  such  acts  as  are  deemed  to 
be  of  urgent  and  immediate  importance  within 
these  limitations  should  go  into  operation  at 
once,  but  should  be  subject  to  referendum  after 
the  same  manner  as  other  laws,  and  on  a  refer- 
endum being  carried  against  them,  they  should 
be  declared  repealed. 

The  initiative  and  referendum  should  be  se- 
cured in  the  constitution  and  the  constitu- 
tional amendment  by  which  it  is  established 
should  contain  all  provisions  for  carrying  it  out. 
It  should  also  provide  that  no  repealing  law 
could  be  enacted  or  its  operation  be  in  any  way 
interfered  with  or  modified  except  by  an  initia- 
tive petition  and  a  majority  vote  of  the  people. 

It  is  claimed  that  under  such  an  arrangement 
unwise  and  ill-considered  laws  will  be  presented 
and  public  prejudice  appealed  to  for  securing 
their  enactment  through  the  initiative.  The 
answer  is  that  where  the  initiative  is  in  opera- 
tion, the  necessity  for  its  use  is  less  frequent 
than  would  reasonably  be  expected  in  consid- 
eration of  the  long  years  of  political  obstruc- 
[144] 


A  SHARE  IN  THE  GOVERNMENT 

tion  which  have  everywhere  preceded  its  adop- 
tion. Legislative  bodies  which  know  that  cer- 
tain measures  can  be  initiated  will  have  ample 
opportunity  for  anticipating  the  public  demand 
and  for  enacting  the  measures  desired  without 
haste,  without  lack  of  consideration,  and  in 
proper  form.  It  is  only  when  the  legislative 
body  fails  or  refuses  to  act  in  any  matter  that 
the  initiative  becomes  necessary. 

If  the  preliminary  discussion  of  all  such 
measures  is  provided  for,  as  has  been  proposed 
above  through  a  monthly  or  weekly  bulletin,  ill- 
considered  and  undesirable  measures  will  have 
no  chance  for  doing  the  harm  anticipated.  As 
to  prejudice,  it  may  be  said  that  since  it  is  pro- 
posed to  provide  full  and  exact  information  on 
all  such  questions,  this  is  the  very  process  by 
which  prejudice  will  cease  to  be  a  factor  and 
intelligent  public  interest  become  the  only  mas- 
ter of  the  situation. 

But  there  are  questions  of  such  a  nature  that 
the  interests  controlling  the  minority  will  never 
consent  to  obey  the  majority  unless  compelled 
to  do  so  by  the  officers  of  the  state.  It  will  be 
shown  in  another  place  that  in  that  event,  and 
[145] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

covering  most  matters,  the  individual  officer 
can  be  controlled  through  the  power  of  the 
public  recall  and  in  that  way  administrative 
obedience  can  be  secured. 

But  this  cannot  reach  those  questions  of  such 
serious  controversy  that  the  opposition  will 
yield  only  to  a  show  of  force.  In  every  such 
instance,  the  majorities  back  of  the  successful 
referendums  must  secure  direct  control  of  the 
administration  of  the  measures  adopted  by 
them  and  hence,  be  in  a  position  to  compel  the 
obedience  of  rebellious  minorities. 

That  makes  necessary  the  control  of  a  polit- 
ical party  which  in  turn  will  administer  the. 
state  and  so  secure  an  effective  administration 
of  the  disputed  measures. 

It  will  sometimes  occur  that  old  parties  can- 
not be  captured,  and  new  organizations  must 
be  created  for  such  a  purpose.  It  has  been 
shown  by  actual  experience  that  the  most  ef- 
fective manner  of  making  the  beginning  in  the 
creation  of  a  new  party  is  by  a  movement  to 
initiate  a  party,  very  much  corresponding  to 
the  initiation  of  a  new  law.  When  a  new  party, 
organized  by  only  a  few  people  and  making 
battle   for   some   hotly   disputed   position   is 

[146] 


A  SHARE  IN  THE  GOVERNMENT 

undertaken,  it  must  necessarily  meet  with  many 
obstacles  and,  incidentally,  may  become  the 
occasion  of  public  harm. 

It  may  withdraw  to  the  ranks  of  a  hopeless 
minority  the  very  persons  who  otherwise  might 
cast  a  favorable  and  controlling  vote  on  other 
and  important  measures.  Society  can  ill  af- 
ford to  lose  the  voice  and  vote  of  those  so  con- 
scientious and  so  devoted  to  the  public  welfare 
as  to  be  personally  willing  to  be  counted  in  a 
hopeless  minority  for  the  sake  of  a  distant 
good,  while  they  possess  the  power  to  be 
a  determining  factor  in  a  battle  for  what 
may  be  a  less  but  an  immediate  social  advan- 
tage. 

There  is  no  good  reason  why  the  majority 
which  can  adopt  a  measure  by  a  referendum 
cannot  also  elect  the  public  officers  who  must 
be  depepded  on  to  make  effective  its  adminis- 
tration. 

It  cannot  be  because  of  a  lack  of  public  con- 
viction as  to  the  wisdom  of  such  a  measure  that 
such  independent  parties  fail,  because  the  ma- 
jority is  already  voting  for,  or  is  ready  to  vote 
for,  the  measure  under  the  referendum.  It 
must  be  because  of  a  lack  of  confidence  on  the 

[147] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

part  of  the  many  in  the  possibility  of  the  elec- 
tion of  such  new  party  candidates. 

There  can  be  no  other  reason  why  popular 
measures  carried  by  great  majorities  are  so 
frequently  betrayed  in  their  administration, 
and  new  parties  which  champion  these  popular 
measures  are  defeated  by  the  very  voters  who 
are  themselves  in  favor  of  these  measures. 

It  is  not  an  unusual  thing,  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  business  company  to  carry  on  an  en- 
terprise which  cannot  be  successfully  under- 
taken without  a  given  amount  of  capital,  to 
accept  subscriptions  to  its  stock  with  the  con- 
dition that  no  subscriptions  are  to  be  in  force 
until  all,  or  enough  to  render  the  venture  a 
safe  one,  has  been  subscribed. 

In  fact,  to  collect  and  to  expend  a  thousand 
dollars  in  an  enterprise  requiring  a  million, 
with  no  assurance  that  the  other  nine  hundred 
ninety-nine  thousand  would  be  forthcoming 
could  be  little  less  than  criminal  carelessness. 

The  Prohibitionists,  the  Socialists,  and  those 

in  the  labor  parties  have  made  a  life-long  battle 

for  measures  which  on  their  merits  command 

the  confidence  of  the  majority.    But  these  par- 

[148] 


A  SHARE  IN  THE  GOVERNMENT 

ties  are  able  to  command  only  small  minorities, 
while  the  parties  which  can  command  majori- 
ties continuously  betray  the  public  good,  as  re- 
lated to  the  interests  involved  in  these  very 
measures. 

It  would  be  no  reflection  on  the  practicabil- 
ity of  a  business  requiring  a  million  to  float  it, 
to  refuse  to  expend  a  thousand  until  all  "was 
in  sight."  In  the  same  way  it  is  not  held  by 
most  men  to  be  a  betrayal  of  temperance,  of 
economic  justice,  or  of  the  rights  of  labor,  to 
refuse  to  invest  their  ballots  in  undertakings 
where  majorities  only  can  control,  until  tlie 
majority  "is  in  sight." 

In  securing  the  submission  of  a  law  under 
the  initiative  and  the  referendum,  it  is  done  only 
on  the  joint  petition  of  some  certain  percentage 
of  all  of  the  voters.  The  assumption  is  that  a 
measure  which  can  secure,  say  a  ten  percent 
support  on  a  petition,  has  a  fighting  chance  for 
a  majority  in  an  actual  election,  and  experi- 
ence justifies  that  conclusion. 

Is  it  not  worth  while  to  consider  whether  the 
initiation  of  a  new  party  could  not  be  under- 
taken in  a  similar  manner? 

[149] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

It  is  everywhere  admitted  that  a  party  which 
could  secure  a  regular  and  contributing  party 
membership  equal  to  ten  percent  of  the  total 
vote  in  any  city,  state,  or  nation,  would  have 
at  once  a  fighting  chance  to  take  control.  It 
would,  moreover,  be  financed  through  its  mem- 
bership in  such  a  way  that  it  would  not  be  de- 
pendent for  its  existence  on  any  great  private 
interests  whatsoever.  Then  why  insist  on 
spending  the  thousand  until  the  million  is  in 
sight? 

Why  not  make  a  battle  for  a  party  mem- 
bership and  deliberately  stay  off  the  ballot 
in  any  city,  state,  or  in  the  nation,  until  at 
least  ten  percent  of  the  voters  are  in  the 
party  organization?  With  such  a  member- 
ship, and  standing  for  a  measure  which  is 
able  to  command  a  majority  support  on  its 
merits,  such  a  party  could  at  once  force  a 
division  of  all  the  voters  along  the  line  of 
the  interests  involved  in  the  measure  pro- 
posed. 

To  nominate  candidates  before  this  previous 

organization  is  secured  cannot  secure  the  end 

desired.    It  does  effectively  disfranchise  those 

who  vote  for  such  minority  parties,  and  it 

[160] 


A  SHARE  IN  THE  GOVERNMENT 

makes  more  difficult  the  building  up  of  the 
membership  to  a  point  where  victory  for  the 
new  measures  and  the  new  party  to  administer 
and  to  enforce  these  measures  becomes  a  possi- 
bility. 

The  governed  have  a  right  to  a  share  in  the 
government  which  governs  them.  There  is  not 
only  the  right,  but  there  is  the  corresponding 
duty  to  share  in  the  government.  Those  in  the 
minority  parties  have  their  opinions  and  second 
choices  concerning  the  men  and  measures  of 
other  parties.  If  minority  parties  would  not 
nominate  until  they  first  made  their  organiza- 
tion strong  by  at  least  a  ten  percent  member- 
ship and,  in  the  meantime,  would  leave  their 
members  free  to  vote  for  second  choices  among 
other  candidates,  they  would  be  a  determining 
factor  at  once  in  many  current  elections,  and 
would  all  the  sooner  win  the  strength  both  to 
name  and  to  elect  their  own  candidates.  In 
that  way,  they  would  all  the  sooner  secure  the 
support  of  a  party  organization  for  their  own 
proposals,  and  that  a  party  created  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  providing  not  only  for  their 
adoption  but  for  their  effective  administration 
as  well. 

[161] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

It  may  be  said  then: — 

1.  That  in  all  ordinary  questions  of  legisla- 
tion, the  initiative  and  the  referendum  make 
possible  the  doing  of  the  public  will. 

2.  That  in  cases  where  the  beaten  minority 
refuses  to  surrender,  the  recall  can  ordinarily 
enforce  conformity  to  the  public  will,  as  will 
be  shown  in  the  succeeding  chapter. 

3.  That  in  cases  where  the  subject  of  dis- 
pute is  such  that  a  complete  division  of  society 
is  inevitable,  the  political  party  arises  as  the 
organized  champion  of  one  side  in  the  contro- 
versy and  as  the  last  remaining  alternative  next 
preceding  civil  war.  In  fact,  it  is  at  this  point 
where  the  political  party  becomes  both  inevi- 
table and  desirable. 

4.  That  to  render  such  a  service  under  such 
circumstances  is  the  only  excuse  for  the  exist- 
ence of  a  political  party.  If  under  such  cir- 
cumstances the  political  party  becomes  indis- 
pensable, then  to  be  a  partisan  in  such  a  party 
becomes  the  highest  virtue.  To  be  a  partisan 
under  any  other  circumstances  is  to  forget  the 
larger  good  of  all  for  the  factional  advantage 
of  a  part,  and  hence,  is  a  betrayal  of  the 
common  good. 

[  152  ] 


A  SHARE  IN  THE  GOVERNMENT 

5.  That  when  old  parties  cannot  be  reorgan- 
ized to  undertake  the  newer  tasks,  and  a  new 
party  must  be  created,  the  principle  of  the  ini- 
tiative may  be  successfully  applied  by  secur- 
ing a  membership  in  the  party  equal  to  at  least 
a  tenth  of  all  the  voters  before  attempting  the 
nomination  of  candidates. 

In  that  way,  a  new  party  can  preserve  the 
rights  of  its  members  to  second  choice  votes, 
and  so  have  important  powers  even  during  the 
days  of  its  own  small  strength,  and  can  all  the 
quicker  secure  the  membership  which  will  force 
the  complete  division  of  the  country  on  new 
measures  which  are  of  such  a  nature  that  they 
can  be  successfully  adopted  and  administered 
only  by  a  new  party. 

The  initiative  and  referendum  then,  is  seen 
to  be  the  most  effective  of  all  recent  devices 
for  escaping  from  the  grasp  of  despotic  powers. 
They  are  directly  and  entirely  a  movement  to- 
wards democracy.  They  may  be  used  effect- 
ively in  the  initiation  of  a  new  party  as  well 
as  a  new  law.  As  the  number  of  states  which 
adopt  them  and  as  the  details  of  their  opera- 

[163] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

tion  are  perfected,  they  are  sure  to  be  extended 
to  national  and  finally  to  international  matters 
and  self-government  will  at  last  be  made  a 
reality  everywhere  and  all  despotic  institutions 
will  utterly  disappear. 


[164] 


CHAPTER  XIV 

Official  Fidelity  and  Efficiency 
Enforced 

Quite  apart  from  the  measures  to  be  adopted 
and  administered  in  the  carrying  on  of  public 
affairs,  is  the  question  of  the  fidelity  and  effi- 
ciency of  those  in  office. 

It  has  been  seen  that  the  political  machinery 
of  a  free  state  must  provide  for  universal  intel- 
hgence  concerning  public  matters,  an  estab- 
lished and  certain  citizenship  for  all  the  mem- 
bers of  society  and  methods  of  organization, 
such  that  all  citizens  shall  be  assured  a  voice 
not  only  in  settling  questions  when  they  are 
once  up  for  settlement,  but  in  bringing  up  new 
questions  for  settlement. 

There  is  the  further  need  of  some  more  effec- 
tive method  of  securing  the  selection  and  con- 
trol of  the  wisest  and  most  capable  for  the 
places  of  responsibility  in  the  public  service, 
and  for  the  removal  of  those  who  shall  prove 
themselves  faithless  or  incapable. 
[155] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

In  the  solving  of  this  problem  there  is  in- 
volved the  consideration  of  the  following: 

1.  The  nomination  of  candidates,  (1)  by  a 
party  convention,  (2)  by  a  party  referendum, 
(3)  by  a  party  primary,  or  (4)  by  a  non-parti- 
san petition. 

2.  The  voting  for  candidates,  ( 1 )  by  a  plu- 
rality, (2)  by  a  majority  with  a  second  elec- 
tion if  found  necessary,  to  secure  a  majority 
vote,  or  (3)  by  preferential  voting. 

8.  Proportional  representation. 

4.  Accurate  and  honest  election  returns,  (1) 
by  the  secret  ballot  and  fair  count,  or  (2)  by 
the  voting  machine. 

5.  The  proper  control  of  those  in  office,  ( 1 ) 
by  a  party  committee,  (2)  by  a  legislative  com- 
mittee, (3)  by  a  legislative  caucus,  (4)  by  a 
party  referendum,  or  (5)  by  a  public  recall. 

6.  The  short  ballot. 

1.  As  to  the  nomination  of  candidates.  (1) 
It  has  already  been  seen  that  nominations  se- 
cured through  pohtical  party  conventions  are 
most  unsatisfactory  and  it  is  not  deemed  neces- 
sary to  give  that  method  of  nomination  any  fur- 
ther consideration  than  to  mention  it  in  order 
[156] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

that  it  may  be  rejected.  (2)  As  to  nomina- 
tions by  party  referendum,  it  would  seem  to 
be  a  very  great  improvement  over  any  conven- 
tion method  that  could  possibly  be  adopted. 
(3)  As  to  nomination  by  a  party  primarj'-,  that 
is  only  a  regularly  established  method  of  hold- 
ing a  party  referendum  under  authorities  and 
safeguards  established  by  law.  (4)  As  to 
nomination  by  non-partisan  petition,  as  this  is 
a  new  proposal  it  would  seem  to  be  entitled  to 
further  consideration. 

It  has  been  said  in  another  place  that  diffi- 
cult as  it  is  to  create  a  new  political  party  when 
it  is  needed,  it  is  even  more  difficult  to  escape 
from  it  when  it  can  no  longer  serve  a  useful 
purpose.  It  has  also  been  shown  that  the  old 
political  parties  in  the  United  States  have 
fallen  under  the  control  of  corrupt  political 
machines,  and  are  instruments  in  the  mislead- 
ing of  the  people  and  in  the  betrayal  of  the 
public  good. 

One  of  the  great  difficulties  in  creating  a  new 
political  party  is  found  in  persuading  people  to 
abandon  old  parties  when  no  good  reason  can 
be  given  for  their  further  existence. 

Observation  justifies  the  statement  that  the 

[157] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

usual  voter  will  never  vote  for  a  new  political 
party  as  long  as  he  can  find  anything  in  it  which 
he  does  not  approve,  but  he  will  continue  to 
vote  for  an  old  political  party  as  long  as  he  can 
find  anything  in  it  which  he  does  approve.  If 
the  new  organization  is  faultless  in  every  re- 
spect, except  in  some  matter  of  minor  impor- 
tance and  if  at  the  same  time  the  old  party  is 
wrong  in  every  particular  of  serious  concern 
and  can  be  approved  of  only  for  some  reason 
entitled  only  to  the  slightest  consideration,  the 
usual  voter  stands  by  his  earlier  political 
alliance. 

So  far  as  the  non-partisan  petition  can  as- 
sist, as  it  certainly  does  assist,  in  dehvering 
men  from  the  superstitions  and  prejudices 
which  bind  them  to  out-worn  and  useless  po- 
litical organizations,  so  far  it  is  to  be  approved. 

Political  parties  with  a  real  mission  are  not 
created  merely  by  party  names,  nor  their  exist- 
ence maintained  simply  by  the  survival  of 
party  catch  words,  party  labels,  or  party 
prejudices. 

Real  political  parties  arise  as  the  represen- 
tatives of  conflicting  economic  interests  of  the 
most  serious  importance.  Nominations  made 
[158] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

by  non-partisan  petitions  cannot  remove  these 
economic  causes.  Candidates  so  presented 
cannot  so  successfully  avoid  real  issues  of  im- 
portance as  can  the  old  style  parties  with  their 
corrupt  machinery,  their  conventions  of  con- 
fusion and  disorder,  their  badges,  their  ban- 
ners and  their  rallying  cries. 

It  is  unquestionably  true  that  nominations 
by  referendums  or  primaries  are  a  great  ad- 
vance over  the  old  conventions,  and,  finally, 
that  nominations  by  non-partisan  petitions, 
where  all  party  labels  are  excluded,  may  ren- 
der so  great  a  service  in  delivering  voters  from 
the  narrowness  and  prejudice  of  out-worn  po- 
litical organizations  as  to  altogether  more  than 
justify  any  loss  which  could  arise  through  the 
disappearance  of  partisan  labels.  This  is  es- 
pecially so  because  of  the  fact  that  with  the 
disappearance  of  partisan  labels,  only  public 
questions  can  remain  over  which  divisions  at 
the  ballot  box  can  possibly  arise. 

2.  As  to  the  methods  of  voting  for  candi- 
dates and  of  determining  elections. 

(1)  It  must  be  said  that  where  there  are 
several  candidates  for  the  same  office  and  no 
[159] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

one  of  them  gets  the  majority,  to  give  the  elec- 
tion to  the  one  having  the  largest  vote,  though 
his  vote  is  less  than  a  majority  of  the  votes 
polled,  is  a  direct  surrender  to  minority  con- 
trol and,  as  frequently  occurs,  leads  to  the 
adoption  of  policies  and  measures  entirely  con- 
trary both  to  the  public  interest  and  to  the 
public  judgment. 

(2)  If  the  majority  is  to  elect,  and  there 
are  only  two  candidates  for  the  same  office,  the 
way  is  easy,  but  if  the  majority  is  to  control 
and  there  are  more  than  two  candidates,  with 
none  of  them  having  a  majority  over  all  the 
rest,  then  a  second  election  in  which  some  of 
the  competing  candidates  in  the  first  are 
dropped  from  the  ballot  is  usually  adopted. 
Most  frequently  all  are  dropped  except  the 
two  with  the  highest  votes.  Then  those  whose 
candidates  do  not  reappear  in  the  second  elec- 
tion may  by  their  second  choice  votes  deter- 
mine which  of  the  other  candidates  shall  be 
given  the  office. 

The  objection  to  this  method  of  election  is 
that  it  immediately  leads  to  bargaining  be- 
tween candidates,  to  fusion  arrangements  be- 
tween campaign  committees,  and  to  the  de- 
[160] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

moralization  of  all  the  political  parties  con- 
cerned. 

When  in  the  second  election  the  defeated 
candidates,  or  the  campaign  committees  of  the 
parties  whose  candidates  no  longer  appear,  are 
permitted  to  give  public  endorsement  to  one 
or  the  other  of  the  remaining  candidates,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  every  temptation  is  of- 
fered for  corrupt  bargaining  and,  in  the  long 
run,  the  demoralization  of  all  parties  con- 
cerned is  very  difficult  to  avoid. 

An  endorsement  of  one  or  the  other  of  the 
remaining  candidates  by  a  party  convention, 
or  even  by  a  party  referendum  of  the  party 
whose  candidate  does  not  get  a  place  on  the 
final  ballot,  has  been  suggested.  But  the  trou- 
ble with  this  is  that  sinister  motives  would  be 
at  work  to  improperly  influence  such  a  con- 
vention or  referendum  and  the  further  trou- 
ble that  while  a  party  member  may  obey  the 
law  of  the  party  as  to  its  own  candidates,  most 
voters  would  refuse  to  be  instructed  as  to  the 
candidates  of  other  parties. 

The  only  remaining  proposal  is  that  those 
voters  who  vote  for  candidates  in  the  primary 
whose  names  fail  to  appear  on  the  final  ballot 

[161] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

shall  refrain  from  voting  at  all  in  the  final 
election.  But  the  trouble  with  this  is,  that 
actual  experience  demonstrates  that  the  most 
sincere  and  active  of  the  members  of  any  such 
party  will  not  refrain  from  voting  their  sec- 
ond choice  when  the  candidate  of  their  own 
party  is  not  on  the  final  ballot  or  when,  for 
any  reason,  their  own  party  is  without  a  can- 
didate. 

For  the  reason  that  reasonable  voters  will 
vote  their  second  choice  anyway  and  for  the 
further  reason  that  the  common  good,  under 
democratic  control,  justly  requires  the  record- 
ing of  that  second  choice  judgment  of  minor- 
ity parties  and,  inasmuch  as  any  effort  to  con- 
trol these  second  choices  in  such  elections  can 
lead  only  to  corruption  and  confusion,  the 
wiser  policy  is  to  leave  to  each  citizen  his  own 
second  choice  of  candidates  and  to  leave  his 
right  to  his  second  choice  vote  unchallenged. 

Such  an  arrangement  would  have  the  fur- 
ther advantage  that  just  because  the  remain- 
ing candidates  could  not  bargain  with  com- 
mittees or  mislead  conventions  or  interfere 
with  a  referendum  in  the  fight  for  endorsement, 
they  would  be  obliged  to  make  their  fight  by 
[162] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

direct  concessions  to  the  measures  supported 
by  minority  parties  as  the  only  way  by  which 
they  could  secure  majorities  in  the  final  elec- 
tions. 

(3)  There  remains  for  consideration  only 
the  method  known  as  preferential  voting.  By 
this  method,  all  voters  vote  for  all  of  the  can- 
didates submitted  in  the  order  of  their  choice, 
marking  each  name  "First,"  "Second," 
"Third,"  etc.,  in  accordance  with  their  prefer- 
ences. If  any  one  of  the  candidates  has  a  ma- 
jority over  all  others,  he  is  declared  elected. 

If,  however,  no  candidate  is  given  a  major- 
ity, then  the  candidate  having  the  smallest 
vote  is  dropped  from  the  list  and  the  second 
choices  on  those  ballots  which  had  voted  "First 
choice"  for  the  candidate  whose  name  is  now 
dropped,  have  their  second  choices  counted 
among  the  remaining  candidates. 

This  process  of  dropping  the  name  with 
fewest  votes  is  continued  until  some  one  of 
the  remaining  candidates  shall  have  secured  a 
majority  of  either  first,  second,  or  third 
choices. 

The  advantages  of  this  method  of  voting 
are  very  many.    All  elections  under  it  are  by 

[163] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

majority  vote.  Ail  voters  under  this  arrange- 
ment may  freely  vote  their  first  choice  with  the 
certainty  that  if  no  one  of  the  candidates  is 
given  a  majority  on  the  first  count,  their  sec- 
ond choices  will  be  sure  to  be  counted,  and  in 
this  manner  the  advantages  of  the  first  and 
second,  and  even  a  third  choice,  are  made  pos- 
sible without  any  possibility  of  intervening 
bargains  or  corrupt  practices  of  any  sort. 

Besides  this,  it  gives  each  voter  an  oppor- 
tunity to  give  full  expression  to  his  own  wishes 
or  convictions  on  the  whole  field  of  possible 
political  action.  He  may  choose  and  be  ready 
to  support  with  very  great  earnestness,  a  can- 
didate representing  a  cause  to  which  only  a 
small  portion  of  his  neighbors  are  ready  to  give 
their  support.  In  that  case,  however,  he  would 
still  have  a  preference  between  remaining  can- 
didates. He  owes  it  to  himself  to  use  all  the 
just  powers  of  his  citizenship,  and  his  country 
is  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  his  further  choice. 
Under  the  preferential  method  of  voting,  all 
this  is  possible.  It  is  possible  without  any  sec- 
ond election.  The  trouble  and  expense  of  sec- 
ond elections  are  avoided.  Second  and  third 
and  fourth  choice  votes  are  possible  and  all 
[164] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

questions  of  endorsements,  or  of  bargains,  or 
of  the  corruption  or  betrayal  of  minority  par- 
ties are  also  avoided. 

For  these  reasons,  it  would  seem  to  be  the 
most  rational  and  effective  method  of  securing 
the  best  results  in  all  elections. 

3.  As  to  proportional  representation  in 
legislative  bodies  such  as  town  councils,  coun- 
ty supervisors,  state  legislatures,  and  the  mem- 
bers of  congress  the  usual  method  is  to  elect 
delegates  or  representatives  from  each  of  sev- 
eral election  districts,  as  wards,  assembly  dis- 
tricts, townships  and  congressional  districts, 
and  within  each  of  these  districts  to  elect  but 
one  person. 

Proportional  representation  would  create 
larger  subdivisions,  in  each  of  which  several 
members  of  these  bodies  would  be  elected.  The 
voting  then  would  take  place  with  the  ballots 
marked  after  the  same  manner  as  under  pref- 
erential voting.  The  total  number  of  votes 
polled  would  be  divided  by  the  number  of  rep- 
resentatives to  be  elected  from  the  district, 
plus  one — that  is,  if  five  members  were  to  be 
elected,  the  number  of  votes  polled  would  be 
[165] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

divided  by  six  and  the  quotient  so  obtained 
would  determine  the  number  of  votes  neces- 
sary for  any  candidate  in  order  to  be  declared 
elected. 

Then  all  first  choices  would  be  counted  in 
the  same  manner  as  under  preferential  voting. 
All  those  who  secured  first  choice  votes  equal 
to  that  required  number,  would  be  declared 
elected.  The  votes  polled  for  any  such  suc- 
cessful candidate  in  excess  of  the  required 
number,  would  immediately  be  counted  for 
their  second  choices  on  the  remaining  candi- 
dates. If  this  should  secure  a  sufficient  num- 
ber for  any  one  of  the  remaining  candidates  to 
give  him  the  number  required,  he  would  be  de- 
clared elected,  and  any  surplus  of  votes  re- 
maining of  his  second  choice  votes  would  be 
counted  for  the  names  below.  When  there 
would  be  no  longer  a  remaining  surplus  from 
successful  candidates,  the  name  having  the 
lowest  vote  in  the  list  would  be  dropped,  and 
his  second  choices  counted  among  the  still  re- 
maining candidates,  after  the  same  manner 
until  five  candidates  would  have  been  chosen. 

The  arguments  in  behalf  of  this  method  of 
electing  members  of  legislative  bodies  are  that 

[166] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

minority  parties,  in  this  way,  will  be  given  rep- 
resentation in  the  legislative  bodies  in  propor- 
tion to  their  numbers,  and  that  group  interests 
of  any  sort  existing  in  the  community  may  thus 
be  easily  and  certainly  given  expression  in  the 
governing  bodies. 

It  is  certain,  that,  under  the  organization  of 
political  parties  by  industrial  groups,  as  is  pro- 
posed in  Chapter  XV,  proportional  represen- 
tation would  greatly  hasten  industrial  repre- 
sentation in  the  administration  of  public 
affairs. 

4.  As  to  accurate  and  honest  election  re- 
turns. 

Anything  that  can  be  done  to  guarantee  the 
purity  of  the  ballot  box  certainly  ought  to  be 
done.  The  introduction  of  the  Australian  bal- 
lot— ^that  is,  the  large  ballot  sheet  with  the 
names  of  all  candidates  printed  on  the  official 
list,  and  with  secrecy  in  its  marking  guaran- 
teed, has  been  of  incalculable  value  in  Ameri- 
can elections,  and  throughout  the  world,  where- 
ever  it  has  been  adopted.  But  the  voting  ma- 
chine, recently  invented,  and  coming  quite 
rapidly  into  general  use,  gives  a  greater  guar- 

[167] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

antee  for  absolute  secrecy,  absolute  accuracy 
in  the  count,  and  a  return  sheet  so  completely 
protected  that  it  is  practically  fraud-proof  in 
making  the  returns. 

Besides,  no  ballot  is  necessary  further  than 
a  list  for  the  convenience  of  the  voters  in  mak- 
ing up  the  names  for  their  own  direction  in 
using  the  machine. 

The  cost  of  printing  the  ballots  and  the  end- 
less task  involved  in  their  counting  and  the  cer- 
tainty established  by  all  the  records  of  official 
recounts  that  accuracy  in  the  counting  of  bal- 
lots is  practically  impossible,  all  together  offer 
the  strongest  reasons  why  the  voting  machine 
should  be  everywhere  adopted.  The  initial  ex- 
pense in  introducing  the  machine  is  not  to  be 
compared  with  the  permanent  economies  re- 
sulting from  its  use,  while  the  advantages  of 
speedy  returns,  accurate  counting  and  abso- 
lute secrecy  are  of  the  gravest  importance. 

5.  As  to  the  proper  control  of  those  once 
elected  to  office. 

(1)  This  has  usually  been  undertaken  by 
the  party  executive  committee.  The  power  of 
the  committee  to  promote  or  to  ruin  the  man 
[168] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

in  office  has  been  depended  upon  to  enforce  its 
controL  But  it  has  been  frequently  the  case 
that  in  the  interest  of  the  pubhc  good,  the 
party  committee  was  more  in  need  of  guidance 
than  was  the  public  officer  whom  it  sought  to 
control. 

(2)  It  has  been  proposed  that  this  author- 
ity, always  unwisely  vested  in  the  executive 
committee  of  a  party,  should  be  transferred 
to  a  special  committee  to  be  known  as  a  legis- 
lative or  advisory  committee,  and  which  is  to 
assume  control  of  public  officers  elected  by  the 
party. 

If  the  men  elected  to  office  are  not  wise 
enough  to  carry  on  their  own  work  as  public 
officers,  and  committeemen  can  be  found,  by 
the  same  party  which  elected  these  men  to  of- 
fice, who  will  be  wise  enough  to  do  so,  then 
the  committeemen  should  have  been  elected  to 
the  public  office  in  the  first  place. 

The  intervention  of  a  committee  between 
the  general  public  and  a  public  officer,  when 
once  elected,  with  authority  to  control  his  ac- 
tion without  the  possibility  of  being  on  the 
ground  and  of  having  personal  information  as 
to  whatever  exigencies  may  arise,  not  only  has 

[169] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

the  force  of  a  vote  of  no  confidence  in  the  pub- 
lic officer,  it  has  the  force  of  a  vote  of  confi- 
dence in  an  unofficial  group  who  are  neces- 
sarily so  related  to  the  duties  of  the  office  that 
they  cannot  possibly  have  in  hand  the  infor- 
mation necessary  for  wise  and  effective  guid- 
ance. 

(3)  As  to  the  legislative  caucus.  In  legis- 
lative bodies,  it  is  a  long-established  practice 
that  the  representatives  of  a  party,  and  some- 
times those  interested  in  a  measure,  regardless 
of  party,  meet  in  a  regular  or  special  meeting 
known  as  a  "legislative  caucus." 

There  has  been  much  discussion  over  the 
propriety  of  these  meetings  and  concerning 
the  powers  which  they  exercise.  But  the  fact 
is,  that  in  the  battle  for  measures  and  policies 
in  such  bodies,  the  contending  forces  must  be 
given  direction  in  somp  way.  If  the  party  cau- 
cus is  to  be  abandoned,  there  would  then  re- 
main no  possible  way  by  which  party  pledges 
could  be  made  good,  and  the  party's  action  and 
responsibility  be  protected  from  the  personal 
weakness  of  its  members  or  the  corrupting 
power  of  the  "party  boss"  and  the  sinister  in- 
terests which  usually  control  the  "party  boss." 
[170] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

That  a  legislator  in  the  promotion  of  any- 
certain  measure  should  be  guided  in  the  details 
of  its  provisions  and  in  the  tactics  of  the  bat- 
tle for  its  adoption  by  his  associates,  who  are 
also  committed  to  its  support,  would  seem  to 
be  the  method  most  likely  to  be  helpful  and 
least  exposed  to  the  dangers  of  unwise  or  dis- 
honest action  on  the  part  of  its  supposed  sup- 
porters. 

Anyway,  it  is  necessarily  a  choice  between 
the  "party  boss,"  or  the  "party  caucus,"  or  an 
utterly  unorganized  and  chaotic  mob  on  the 
one  side,  as  against  a  solid  unit  on  the  other, — 
for  the  enemies  of  the  public  good  "know  their 
master's  voice"  and  forever  heed  its  call. 

(4)  It  is  further  proposed  that  when  a  pub- 
lic officer  shall  prove  unsatisfactory  to  a  party 
which  supported  his  candidacy,  that  in  that 
case,  he  shall  be  subject  to  recall  by  a  referen- 
dum to  the  party  which  elected  him  or  by  the 
act  of  his  party's  executive. 

The  objection  to  this  is  that  he  was  elected 
by  a  majority  vote  as  against  the  rest  of 
the  community,  but  he  is  to  be  instructed  by  a 
party  committee  or  by  a  majority  vote  within 
the  party  which  could  never  be  much  more 

[in] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

than  one-fourth  of  the  total  vote  of  the  com- 
munity, and,  frequently,  would  be  only  the 
smallest  fraction  of  the  persons  actually  con- 
cerned. Public  officers  have  been  more  fre- 
quently corrupted  by  the  great  private  inter- 
ests controlling  committees  which  control  the 
officers,  than  by  directly  corrupting  the  offi- 
cers themselves.  Any  such  committee  control, 
it  has  been  agreed,  is  most  dangerous.  But 
any  power  on  the  part  of  a  majority  of  the 
members  of  a  party  to  displace  a  public  offi- 
cer, once  he  has  been  elected  by  a  majority  of 
the  whole  community,  is  a  direct  departure 
from  majority  rule,  for  while  only  a  majority 
can  elect  to  office,  it  still  gives  an  insignificant 
minority  the  power  to  discharge  a  public  offi- 
cer, who  should  be  elected  and  controlled,  not 
by  small  minorities,  but  by  the  majority  of 
the  whole  community. 

(5)  This  leads  us  to  the  one  and  only  re- 
maining method  for  controlling  those  in  office, 
that  is,  through  the  public  recall. 

In  a  popular  government  it  is  always  possi- 
ble to  elect  men  to  office  who  would  better  be 
left  in  private  life.  It  is  true  that  such  an  un- 
fortunate officer  may  be  removed  at  the  end 
[172] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

of  his  term  by  the  election  of  a  successor,  bet- 
ter able  to  command  the  public  confidence,  but 
that  does  not  deliver  society  from  the  harm 
such  a  public  officer  may  do  during  his  term 
of  office. 

Again,  a  scandalous  administration  on  the 
part  of  some  one  man  frequently  imperils  the 
tenure  of  office  of  others  elected  by  the  same 
party,  and  whose  services  are  entirely  satisfac- 
toiy.  Under  our  current  tenure  of  office,  even 
in  the  regular  elections,  there  is  no  way  of 
reaching  such  a  faithless  officer  without  at  the 
same  time  imperiling  the  positions  of  others. 

Again,  such  an  unfortunate  election  may  be, 
and  frequently  is,  an  occasion  by  which  great 
public  interests  are  made  to  suffer  serious  loss 
by  measures  brought  into  force  through  the 
betrayal  of  the  public  good,  by  those  temporar- 
ily in  power. 

If  the  public  interests  are  to  be  delivered 
from  the  dangers  of  such  a  situation,  it  is  not 
only  necessary  to  be  able  to  reach  each  public 
measure  on  its  merits,  regardless  of  public 
officials,  but  it  is  equally  necessary  to  be  able 
to  reach  all  public  officials,  each  on  his  own 
merits,  regardless  of  public  measures. 

[173] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

The  means  by  which  that  may  be  accomp- 
lished is  by  arranging  that  by  a  general  peti- 
tion, signed  at  any  time  by  a  reasonable  por- 
tion of  the  community,  after  the  same  manner 
as  in  the  ref erendmn,  an  election  may  be  called, 
retiring  at  once  such  a  faithless  public  servant 
and  electing  in  his  place  a  successor,  who  will 
obey  the  public  will. 

The  wisdom  of  the  public  recall  of  a 
faithless  official  has  been  conceded  by  some, 
and  then  the  objection  made  that  it  ought 
not  to  apply  to  judges  in  the  courts  of 
law. 

This  objection  is  based  on  the  obvious  fact 
that  the  majority  of  the  voters  in  the  com- 
munity cannot  possibly  be  versed  in  the  intrica- 
cies of  the  law  and  are  therefore  incapable  of 
a  just  judgment  on  the  actions  of  a  judge  in 
his  ruUngs  in  the  court,  or  on  his  decisions  as 
to  the  meaning  of  the  law. 

But  this  is  only  the  same  old  objection 
against  popular  rule.  It  has  been  seen  that 
the  dangers  of  popular  rule  are  many,  but 
that  they  are  never  so  great  as  is  fixed,  arbi- 
trary, irresponsible  and  despotic  power  vested 
in  any  way  in  anyone,  be  he  an  industrial  mas- 

[174] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

ter,  a  party  boss,  a  military  lord,  a  court  judge, 
a  president,  king  or  kaiser. 

It  is  quite  likely,  however,  that  the  reversal 
of  a  court  decision  would  be  found  to  be  more 
effective  than  the  recall  of  the  judges.  This  is 
true  for  the  same  reason  that  it  is  easier  to  re- 
verse the  action  of  a  legislative  body  on  some 
particular  law  than  it  would  be  to  recall  from 
office  all  those  who  had  voted  for  the  objection- 
able measure.  But  the  wiser  arrangement  still 
would  be  to  provide  for  either  method  of  pro- 
cedure and  in  that  way  under  the  form  of  law 
the  final  authority  in  government  is  made,  be- 
yond all  power  to  prevent  it,  the  will  of  the 
majority. 

6.  The  short  ballot. 

There  are  three  great  tasks  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  public  affairs.  One  is  the  fixing  of 
the  things  to  be  undertaken  and  the  general 
policies  which  are  to  prevail.  This  should  be 
done  by  the  majority  vote  and  hence,  must  be 
done  in  the  elections.  The  next  is  the  work- 
ing out  of  these  general  purposes  and  policies 
in  their  details  in  the  legislative  and  adminis- 
trative activities  of  the  government.     And, 

[1751 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

finally,  there  is  the  task  of  actually  organiz- 
ing and  carrying  on  the  work  of  doing  the 
things  so  agreed  upon. 

In  all  this  the  greatest  wisdom  and  efficiency 
demands  that  the  persons  who  determine  the 
details  of  legislation  and  of  administrative 
policies  should  be  representative  of  all  the 
great  social  interests  concerned.  But  repre- 
sentation of  those  interests  ought  not  to  be 
duplicated  over  and  over  again  with  a  needless 
multiplication  of  public  officials,  only  to  con- 
fuse the  situation. 

In  the  execution  of  these  undertakings,  the 
call  is  solely  for  efficient  management.  Di- 
vided council  and  divided  responsibility  both 
tend  to  inefficiency. 

The  movement  for  the  short  ballot  is  an  ef- 
fort to  reduce  the  number  of  elected  officials, 
to  centralize  and  definitely  fix  responsibility,  to 
promote  efficiency  in  any  executive  service  by 
promotion  in  the  service,  and  to  secure  all  the 
advantages  of  trained  and  capable  workers 
under  long  time  engagements. 

Against  this  most  sensible  proposal  it  is  ob- 
jected that  it  is  not  democratic.  How  it  is 
understood  to  be  especially  democratic  to  elect 

[176] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

three  men  to  do  what  one  can  better  do,  or  to 
elect  many  men  to  different  parts  of  a  simple 
task,  so  as  to  encourage  inefficiency  in  the  do- 
ing of  the  people's  work,  has  never  been 
explained. 

But,  it  is  urged  again,  that  this  policy  of 
the  short  ballot  leads  to  an  office  holding  class, 
that  offices  must  be  passed  around,  that  every- 
body must  be  given  a  chance. 

It  is  utterly  impossible  to  elect  everybody 
to  a  public  office.  It  is  not  impossible  to  pro- 
vide employment  for  all  who  care  to  be  of 
service,  and  so  to  organize  industry  as  to  make 
certain  one's  promotion  for  efficiency.  Ra- 
tional opportunity,  for  such  all-the-time  em- 
ployment must  be  provided,  but  to  try  to  do 
this  by  cumbering  up  the  ballot  with  direct 
elections  to  all  sorts  of  pubhc  positions  in  the 
routine  public  service,  can  in  no  way  help  in 
the  promotion  of  such  a  purpose,  nor  can  it  in 
any  way  advance  the  interests  of  democracy. 

Municipal,  state,  national  and  international 
elective  offices  should  be  numerous  enough  to 
enable  the  people,  with  the  aid  of  the  initiative, 
the  referendimi  and  the  recall,  always  to  be 

[177] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

able  to  determine  the  things  to  be  undertaken 
and  the  general  policies  to  be  adopted. 

To  attempt  more  than  this,  by  direct  elec- 
tion, is  only  to  do  violence  to  the  simplest  prin- 
ciple of  effective  organization,  while  under  the 
pretense  of  being  democratic,  real  democracy 
is  made  impossible. 

The  contention  so  often  made  that  democ- 
racy and  efficiency  are  not  possible  is  absurd. 
The  citing  of  the  obstructive  forms  of  party 
organization  and  the  obstructive  forms  of  gov- 
ernment procedure  in  this  country  as  instances 
of  democratic  failure,  is  not  justified  by  the 
facts. 

This  country  is  controlled  by  the  great  pri- 
vate interests,  every  one  of  which  is  an  indus- 
trial despotism.  The  obstructive  forms  of 
party  organization  and  the  obstructive  forms 
of  government  procedure  are  both  the  work 
of  the  despotic  powers  of  monopolized  indus- 
try. They  are  still  in  the  mastery  not  because 
of  democracy,  but  for  the  lack  of  democracy. 

No  good  can  be  accomplished  by  any  sug- 
gested concessions  to  autocracy.  All  that  is 
needed  is  the  application  of  common  sense 
[178] 


OFFICIAL  FIDELITY  AND  EFFICIENCY 

measures  for  discovering,  stating  and  enforc- 
ing the  public  will  as  the  supreme  authority  in 
the  state. 

From  all  the  foregoing  it  is  seen  that  fidelity 
and  efficiency  in  public  office  can  be  best  se- 
cured by  the  initiative  and  the  referendum,  by 
nominations  by  petition,  by  preferential  vot- 
ing, by  proportional  representation,  by  the  use 
of  the  voting  machine  in  the  place  of  the 
printed  ballot,  by  the  public  recall  and  with 
the  short  ballot. 


[179] 


CHAPTER  XV 

The  Industeial  Organization  of  Political 
Parties 

It  has  been  seen  in  Chapter  Eight  how, 
through  the  unofficial  caucus,  the  unwieldy 
and  disorderly  conventions,  the  machine-made 
committees  and  their  corruptly  chosen  candi- 
dates, political  parties  are  used  to  obstruct  the 
public  will,  and  as  instruments  in  the  hands  of 
private  interests  in  the  doing  of  public  liarm. 

It  has  been  seen  in  Chapter  Seven  that  the 
real  occasion  for  the  existence  of  political  par- 
ties is  the  existence  of  the  great  conflicting  in- 
terests which  these  parties  are  created  to  rep- 
resent in  the  battle  of  these  interests  for  the 
control  and  use  of  the  public  power.  If  the 
political  party  is  to  be  made  a  means  of  real 
service  in  the  promotion  of  the  public  good, 
then  some  means  must  be  devised  by  which 
each  party  and  the  committees  which  represent 
and  control  each  party  can  be  made  directly 
[180] 


INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

answerable   to   the   gi*eat  economic   interests 
which  are  the  occasion  for  its  existence. 

The  great  interests  do  now  control  the  par- 
ties which  they  use  in  their  own  behalf.  This 
ought  to  be  made  an  open  and  unmistakable 
control  and  it  ought  to  extend  to  all  interests 
and  to  apply  to  all  parties.  This  can  be  done 
by  making  those  in  the  industrial  groups, 
not  those  in  the  geographical  districts,  the 
organic  units  of  which  the  parties  are  com- 
posed. 

Now  the  great  private  monopolies  send  their 
delegates  to  the  conventions  and  put  their  men 
in  control  of  the  committees,  but  thev  do  it 
in  the  name  of  wards,  cities,  counties  or  states. 
Should  they  send  them  as  directly  and  openly 
chosen  by  the  steel,  copper,  coal,  railway  or 
banking  corporations,  so  that  their  spokesmen 
would  be  openly  known  for  what  they  really 
are,  it  would  make  an  end  of  their  power  at 
once. 

What  a  revolution  it  would  cause  if,  in  a 
national  convention  of  republicans  or  demo- 
crats the  badges  and  banners  of  the  states 
should  be  removed  and  each  delegate  should 

[181] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

be  given  in  open  display  the  badges  of  the 
private  monopohes  he  really  stands  for. 

It  is  only  by  hiding  the  fact  as  to  whom  they 
really  represent  that  corrupt  political  ma- 
chines are  able  to  continue  their  control  of 
public  affairs.  The  great  private  monopolies 
have  everything  to  gain  by  keeping  their  in- 
dustrial group  control  of  the  country  out  of 
sight. 

But  the  useful  people  lose  all  by  not  openly 
organizing  for  political  purposes  along  the  line 
of  their  great  industrial  group  interests. 

Remember  that  men  should  vote  together 
only  because  they  have  interests  together.  Re- 
member that  political  parties  have  no  excuse 
for  their  existence  except  as  they  represent 
these  great  collective  interests. 

What  are  the  great  collective  interests  of 
most  serious  concern  to  the  people  and  con- 
cerning which  the  control  of  the  government 
in  their  behalf  is  of  the  gravest  importance? 

Only  a  little  while  ago  all  progressive  coun- 
tries were  engaged  in  a  great  conflict  over  lo- 
cal self-government.  It  was  justly  contended 
that  only  those  who  were  concerned  in  the  af- 
[  182  ] 


INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

fairs  of  a  city,  a  county,  or  a  state,  should  have 
voice  in  its  affairs. 

But  why  was  this  contention  made?  There 
is  but  one  answer.  It  was  because  those  who 
hved  in  a  city,  county  or  state  would  be  best 
informed  as  to  its  needs  and  most  vitally  con- 
cerned in  its  welfare. 

But  since  the  building  of  the  American 
states  there  have  grown  up  in  this  country 
great  group  interests  of  more  vital  concern 
than  any  which  now  prevail  within  any  certain 
geographical  subdivisions  of  the  country. 

During  the  last  fifty  years  the  most  marked 
thing  in  the  productive  processes  by  which  the 
means  of  existence  are  provided,  in  the  organ- 
izations of  business  bodies,  in  the  organizations 
of  labor,  and  in  the  activities  of  the  modern 
state,  has  been  the  appearance  and  rapid 
gi'owth  of  the  great  industrial  or  occupational 
group  interests. 

Consider  the  processes  of  production.  Fifty 
years  ago  the  world's  work  was  done,  in  the 
main,  by  each  worker,  employing  himself  a 
part  of  the  time  in  many  lines  of  work.  The 
same  man  was  a  farmer,  a  carpenter,  a  stone 

[183] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

mason,  a  tanner,  a  shoemaker,  a  blacksmith,  a 
fuel  producer,  and  a  transport  worker.  A  part 
of  the  time  he  worked  on  each  of  many  differ- 
ent kinds  of  tasks. 

During  the  last  fifty  years  more  than  fifty 
great  private  industries,  all  of  which  have 
grown  into  great  private  monopoHes,  have 
been  developed  out  of  lines  of  work  which  had 
before  been  carried  on  by  self-employed  men 
in  small  shops  of  their  own,  in  any  one  of 
which  they  were  employed  only  small  portions 
of  the  time. 

Consider  the  new  forms  of  business  organ- 
ization. Formerly,  the  prosperous,  self-em- 
ployed producers  would  not  only  be  working 
a  part  of  the  time  at  many  tasks  but  they  were 
owners  as  individuals  or  as  partners  in  many 
lines  of  business. 

Now  the  lines  of  business  organization  have 
been  extended  along  the  lines  of  these  great 
industrial  or  occupational  group  develop- 
ments. Business  companies  are  mining  com- 
panies, railway  companies,  lumber  companies, 
hardware  companies,  cotton  or  woolen  manu- 
facturing companies,  and  so  on  to  the  end  of 
the  list  of  all  the  great  business  imdertakings. 
[184] 


INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

Consider  how  the  organizations  of  labor  are 
following  the  same  lines  in  the  industrial 
grouping  of  the  workers.  The  whole  trend  of 
the  labor  world  is  more  and  more  toward  the 
consolidation  of  all  the  workers  in  any  indus- 
try, as  mining,  building,  printing,  manufactur- 
ing or  farming,  into  great  consolidated  or 
federated  bodies. 

But  the  same  thing  is  going  on  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  modern  state.  In  the  cabi- 
net of  George  Washington,  there  were  but 
four  members  and  every  one  of  them  had  du- 
ties relating  to  the  government  income,  to  de- 
fense or  to  the  administration  of  the  laws.  Not 
one  of  them  was  related  to  industrial  or 
commercial  group  interests  of  any  sort. 

Of  the  five  new  members  added  since  then 
to  the  official  family  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  all  of  them  have  duties  directly 
related  to  some  industrial  group,  or  to  some 
social  service.  There  is  no  doubt  that  new 
departments  will  be  added  speedily.  A  sec- 
retary of  mines  and  mining,  of  transportation, 
of  manufactures,  of  public  health,  of  educa- 
tion, are  quite  sure  to  be  added. 
[185] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

But  this  only  indicates  in  the  smallest  way 
the  great  activities  of  the  government  in  the 
industry  and  commerce  of  the  nation.  In  the 
various  departments  there  are  bureaus,  or  sub- 
divisions of  the  public  service  directly  relating 
the  administrative  activities  of  the  nation  to 
almost  every  activity  or  service  in  which  any 
of  its  citizens  could  possibly  be  employed. 

The  importance  of  all  this  is  understood 
when  it  is  remembered  that  one's  occupation 
involves  the  most  important  of  all  his  social 
relations.  It  is  from  his  occupation  that  he 
must  obtain  the  means  of  existence  and  be  able 
to  provide  for  his  own.  It  is  through  his  occu- 
pation that  he  must  mainly  render  whatever 
service  he  may  be  able  to  render  in  behalf  of 
the  common  good. 

It  is  by  his  occupation  and  his  efficiency  or 
inefficiency  in  it  that  he  is  judged  and  honored 
or  discredited  by  his  countrymen. 

It  is  by  his  occupation  that  he  is  able  to  dis- 
cover his  own  capacity  and  realize  his  own 
possibilities.  It  is  by  his  occupation  that  his 
strength  and  his  character  are  developed  or 
his  manhood  undermined  and  his  personal  pos- 

[186] 


INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

sibilities  are  blighted.  No  other  choice  in  life 
is  more  serious  than  the  choice  of  an  occupa- 
tion. 

There  are  no  other  social  bonds,  outside 
those  of  the  fireside,  so  strong  or  so  holy  in 
the  thought  of  a  worthy  man  as  the  bonds  with 
which  men  are  bound  to  each  other  in  the  occu- 
pations in  which  they  wear  out  their  lives  to- 
gether in  social  service. 

There  are  no  collective  interests  through 
which  one's  citizenship  can  better  be  trusted  to 
speak  sincerely,  in  its  effort  to  speak  for  the 
common  good,  than  through  the  very  industry 
or  occupation  by  means  of  which  one  serves 
society. 

The  enemies  of  progress  are  already  acting 
politically  through  the  industries  and  the  oc- 
cupations through  which  they  exercise  despotic 
powers  and  by  means  of  which  they  are  able  to 
convert  a  supposedly  free  state  into  a  practical 
despotism. 

The  political  party  which  is  to  fight  the  bat- 
tle for  real  democracy  must  not  only  declare 
for  industrial  democracy  as  an  end  to  be  sought 
for,  but  it  must  build  its  own  organization  and 

[187] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

elect  and  control  its  own  committees  with  the 
highest  consideration  given  to  the  industrial 
groups,  not  to  geographical  boundary  lines. 

Voters  are  now  registered  as  to  their  occu- 
pations. In  cases  where  an  organized  political 
party  provides  for  a  regular  dues-paying  mem- 
bership, the  occupations  are  usually  registered. 
It  would  be  an  easy  matter  to  classify  all 
citizens  according  to  their  occupations. 

The  transport  workers,  the  building  trades, 
the  miners,  the  farmers,  factory  workers,  com- 
mercial workers,  iron  and  steel  workers,  the 
housewives,  the  professional  workers  and  other 
such  occupations,  would  each  constitute  a 
subdivision  in  the  party.  Each  such  group 
could  be  given  its  representation  accordingly. 
And  whenever  proportional  representation 
would  be  established  industrial  representation 
in  the  legislative  bodies  would  become  inevita- 
ble. Committeemen,  delegates  and  public 
officers  elected,  and  subject  to  instruction  or 
recall,  by  those  employed  in  an  industry  to 
serve  that  industry  in  political  warfare,  would 
make  an  end  of  the  power  of  the  monopoly 
controlled  political  machine. 
[188]       , 


INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

Committees  so  elected  and  so  controlled 
could  never  ignore  the  public  interests  of  any 
share  of  the  people,  for  then  every  occupa- 
tional group  in  the  country  vrould  be  directly 
represented  on  the  committees. 

In  such  committees  there  could  be  no  mutual 
connivance  for  keeping  each  other  in  office  and 
in  the  joint  control  of  party  affairs.  Each 
committeeman  would  be  answerable  to  a  sepa- 
rate industrial  group  and  no  slate  could  be 
made  up  by  which  any  one  candidate  could 
offer  support  to  another  in  exchange  for  a 
like  service  for  himself.  With  the  convention 
delegates  and  executive  committeemen  of  a 
political  party  controlled  by  the  industrial 
groups,  no  such  party  could  forget  its  mis- 
sion and  seek  for  any  advantage  for  the 
party's  own  sake.  All  their  activities  would 
necessarily  be  given  to  promoting  the  inter- 
ests of  the  great  industrial  groups  represented 
by  them.  In  no  other  way  could  any  one  of 
the  committeemen  be  returned  to  power 
again. 

Under  such  an  arrangement,  both  on  the 
committees  and  in  public  office,  the  real  work- 

[189] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

ers  in  the  occupations  would  be  represented 
by  men  of  their  own  choice.  It  would  then  be- 
come impossible  for  those  who  make  a  profes- 
sion of  politics,  or  for  lawyers  and  bankers, 
longer  to  so  preponderate  all  other  occupations 
in  the  public  service. 

Under  such  an  arrangement,  the  two  million 
organized  farmers  and  the  three  million  other 
workers,  who  are  in  labor  organizations,  inevi- 
tably would  be  heard  and  the  committeemen 
selected  and  the  public  officers  chosen  would 
speedily  become  less  acceptable  to  the  great 
private  interests,  because  no  longer  subject  to 
their  control.  They  would,  at  once,  become 
responsive  to  the  needs  and  wishes  of  the 
industrial  groups  which  would  be  represented 
by  them. 

In  the  nature  of  the  case,  any  party  created 
after  that  manner  could  not  become  the  tool 
of  the  industrial  despot  and,  for  the  same  rea- 
son, it  could  not  escape  from  becoming  the 
servant  of  the  millions  of  useful  people,  all  of 
whom  live  because  of  their  vital  and  constant 
connection  with  the  industries  in  which  they 
are  employed. 

[190] 


INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

It  would  be  as  impossible  for  such  a  party 
to  carry  on  its  own  affairs  or  finally  to  control 
the  state  except  in  the  interest  of  all  those  who 
maintain  useful  relations  to  society,  as  it  would 
be  for  any  one  of  the  workers  to  live  at  the 
expense  of  any  industry  while  rendering  no 
service  in  the  industry. 

It  has  been  feared  that  in  such  an  arrange- 
ment some  few  of  the  larger  industries  would 
be  victimized  by  the  combination  of  many 
smaller  ones,  or  that  the  smaller  industries 
would  be  practically  voiceless  because  of  the 
very  great  numbers  of  those  employed  as 
farmers,  miners,  or  housewives,  in  comparison 
with  the  smaller  number  of  commercial  or 
professional  workers. 

But  that  could  hardly  occur,  for  the  reason 
that  in  all  matters  the  referendum  to  the  whole 
body  of  the  community  would  be  the  final 
arbiter  in  all  serious  disputes. 

It  should  be  further  said  that  should  any 
industry  be  seriously  injured  in  its  interests 
or  any  other  unfairly  benefited  in  the  indus- 
trial republic  of  the  future,  then  the  desertions 
that  would  follow  from  the  one  industry  and 
the  swarm  of  new  workers  offering  for  the 

[191] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

other  industry,  would  compel  a  more  equitable 
arrangement. 

From  all  the  foregoing,  it  is  seen  that  the 
great  productive  undertakings,  the  great  busi- 
ness monopolies,  the  organizations  of  labor, 
and  the  departments  of  government  activity 
are  all  forming  along  the  lines  of  the  great 
industries. 

It  is  seen  that  the  great  private  interests, 
because  thej'-  act  with  the  collective  power  of 
the  industrial  group  monopolies  are  able  to 
exert  despotic  control  over  political  parties 
and,  hence,  over  public  affairs  in  their  own  be- 
half and  just  because  the  useful  people  have 
so  far  failed  to  make  these  industrial  groups 
the  units  of  organization  in  the  control  of 
political  parties  and  so  in  the  control  of  public 
affairs  in  their  o^vn  behalf,  despotism  has  been 
triumphant. 

It  is  seen  how  these  industrial  groups  in  the 
industries,  the  great  private  business  monopo- 
lies which  control  the  industries  and  the  activi- 
ties of  the  government,  all  dove-tail  into  each 
other  in  the  great  social  services  of  the  modern 
state  in  such  a  way  that  private  monopoly  has 
become  its  master. 

[192] 


INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

Industrial  democracy  can  be  established  by 
organizing  those  employed  in  the  great  indus- 
trial or  occupational  groups  into  self-govern- 
ing organizations.  Then  these  self-governing 
organizations  will  become  the  political  masters 
of  the  state.  Public  ownership  will  succeed 
private  monopoly  and  these  self-governing  in- 
dustrial groups  will  be  able  to  displace  and  to 
succeed  the  industrial  depots.  By  this 
simple  transition  industrial  despotism  will  be 
destroyed  and  industrial  democracy  will  be 
established. 

This,  then,  is  the  pathway  that  leads  to  real 
deliverance. 

1.  The  classification  of  party  members  ac- 
cording to  the  industrial  groups. 

2.  The  election  of  committeemen  and  the 
control  of  the  party  by  these  industrial  group 
units  within  the  party. 

3.  The  public  ownership  of  the  great  mo- 
nopolized industries  and  the  reconstruction  of 
governmental  activities  in  such  a  way  that 
industrial  democracy  will  necessarily  become 
the  successor  of  industrial  despotism. 

[193] 


PART  IV 
THE  ORDER  OF  ADVANCE 


CHAPTER  XVI 

How  To  Proceed 

The  most  serious  question  that  any  citizen 
can  ask  himself  is:  "What  can  I  do?" 

He  studies  public  measures  and  the  forms 
and  activities  of  government  to  little  purpose 
if  his  studies  do  not  lead  to  effective  action. 

In  matters  of  political  importance,  collec- 
tive action  is  the  only  effective  action  possible. 
Groups  of  citizens  must  act  together  to  secure 
control  of  municipal,  state,  national  and 
international  governments  if  any  great  im- 
provement in  public  affairs  is  to  be  realized. 

Democracy  prevails  most  where  the  groups 
are  small,  the  interests  involved  most  easily 
understood,  and  the  measures  proposed  of 
most  immediate  concern. 

That  is  how  it  happens  that  there  is  most  of 
democracy  in  municipal  affairs,  less  in  the 
state,  still  less  in  the  nation  and  none  at  all  in 
international  activities. 

[197] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

It  is  always  true  that  things  actually  ac- 
complished, are  more  easily  understood  than 
things  only  proposed. 

It  is  a  sound  policy  to  undertake  the  easiest 
things  first.  The  fundamental  causes  of  polit- 
ical wrong  are  the  same  in  the  municipality, 
the  state,  the  nation,  and  in  world  politics. 

The  easiest  way  to  raise  an  issue  in  the  state 
is  in  the  effort  to  follow  up  with  the  authority 
and  the  resources  of  the  state  some  matter 
which  the  great  municipalities  in  the  state  have 
carried  forward  to  the  limits  of  their  jurisdic- 
tion. It  is  then  easily  seen  by  all  that  it  must 
be  taken  up  in  the  larger  field  and  continued 
in  the  larger  way  if  the  best  results  are  to  be 
secured. 

In  the  same  way  between  the  state  and  the 
nation.  When  a  state  has  done  all  that  it  can 
do  in  some  public  matter  and  any  further  ac- 
tion is  either  beyond  its  jurisdiction,  or  be- 
yond its  resources,  such  a  question  then 
becomes  naturally  and  inevitably  a  question  in 
national  politics.  All  questions  of  interna- 
tional trade,  international  credit  and  the  mas- 
tery of  the  high  seas,  must  always  be  questions 
of  international,  as  well  as  of  national  concern. 
[198] 


HOW  TO  PROCEED 

In  municipal,  state,  national  and  interna- 
tional politics,  the  causes  of  division,  strife, 
partisan  warfare  within  the  states,  and  mili- 
taiy  undertakings  between  the  nations,  are  all 
of  them  economic  in  their  character. 

In  the  municipahties,  the  great  controversial 
questions  in  politics  arise  out  of  the  private 
ownership  of  municipal  affairs,  such  as  unim- 
proved ground  values,  street  railways,  water, 
gas,  electricity,  and  the  like,  and  the  neces- 
sary economic  wrong  and  political  corruption 
which  must  always  result  from  the  conflict 
between  the  public  good  and  the  private 
advantage  of  the  private  owners  of  these 
monopolies. 

Exactly  the  same  kind  of  social  services  are 
the  cause  of  the  great  political  controversies  in 
the  state  and  nation.  In  the  same  way,  inter- 
national strife  is  always  the  result  of  the  ef- 
forts of  great  private  interests  in  the  various 
nations,  those  of  each  nation  through  the 
power  of  their  own  country,  seeking  to  extend 
their  power  to  exploit  to  the  disadvantage  of 
competing  industrial  monopolies  in  other 
countries. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  both  industrial 

[199] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

and  political  despotism  must  remain  as  long  as 
these  conditions  continue.  It  must  be  admitted 
also  that  no  local  achievement  in  behalf  of  the 
public  ownership  and  democratic  management 
of  these  great  instruments  of  social  service  can 
deliver  even  that  locahty  from  further  extor- 
tion in  the  larger  enterprises  which  are  national 
and  international  in  their  scope. 

It  is  impossible  for  any  city  to  settle  the 
questions  involved  in  land  monopoly,  trans- 
portation monopoly,  manufacturing  monopoly, 
commercial  monopoly,  and  financial  monopoly, 
and  it  is  equally  clear  that  no  state  can  solve 
these  problems  without  the  co-operation  of  the 
national  authorities,  and,  finally,  no  nation  can 
secure  even  for  itself,  the  conditions  of  peace 
and  the  advantages  of  world-wide  trade, 
except  with  the  co-operation  of  the  other 
nations. 

In  consideration  of  all  the  foregoing  is  it 
not  evident  that  whatever  is  to  be  undertaken 
in  the  improvement  of  social  conditions  ought 
to  begin  with  the  small  affairs  of  the  munici- 
pality and  by  each  smaller  achievement,  ex- 
tend the  experience,  increase  the  power  and 
[200] 


HOW  TO  PROCEED 

enlarge  the  public  confidence  in  collective 
action  for  each  larger  task? 

It  is  impossible  to  be  a  good  citizen  of  the 
world  while  one  is  a  poor  citizen  of  his  own 
country.  It  is  impossible  to  be  a  good  citizen 
of  the  nation  and  at  the  same  time  a  bad  citi- 
zen within  a  state.  It  is  impossible  to  be  a  good 
citizen  as  to  the  affairs  of  the  state  and  neglect 
or  ignore  the  claims  of  the  common  good  in  the 
municipality.  It  is  impossible  to  be  effective 
in  one's  service  in  any  smaller  political  unit 
as  a  city,  state  or  nation,  without  becoming 
directly  responsible  for  the  larger  undertakings 
of  the  larger  fields  of  action. 

The  way  to  proceed  in  the  improvement  of 
public  conditions  and  in  the  rebuilding  of  po- 
litical machinery  is  to  act  first  of  all  in  the 
municipality,  not  as  a  substitute  for  the  larger 
tasks,  but  as  a  first  battle  in  a  long  war. 


[aoi] 


CHAPTER  XVII 

What  to  Do 

It  was  seen  in  Chapter  Ten  that  universal 
political  education  is  of  fundamental  impor- 
tance in  the  improvement  of  the  administrative 
machinery  of  a  democratic  state. 

Public  meetings  reach  but  a  few,  and  reach 
these  in  small  groups,  which  are  rarely  repre- 
sentative of  the  whole  life,  even  of  any  given 
community.  The  press  is  prejudiced,  and  sub- 
ject to  the  control  of  great  private  interests. 
It  was  seen  that  the  most  rational  method  of 
reaching  all  of  the  people  with  accurate  and 
reliable  information  would  be  through  the  pub- 
lication of  a  bulletin,  in  which  both  sides  of 
every  controverted  proposal  could  be  fairly 
presented  and  these  bulletins  regularly  posted 
to  all  the  voters. 

In  order  to  get  this  bulletin  established  in 
any  state  it  will  mean  a  prolonged  campaign, 
while  the  bulletin  itself  would  be  of  the  great- 
[202] 


WHAT  TO  DO 

est  value  in  promoting  even  the  campaign  for 
its  own  creation. 

The  first  thing  to  do  in  improving  political 
machinery  is  to  spread  the  information  con- 
cerning public  matters  in  a  bulletin  regularly 
published,  widely  distributed,  and  in  which 
both  sides  of  public  questions  of  importance 
are  regularly  presented  by  representative  and 
admitted  spokesmen  from  both  sides.  This  is 
altogether  a  practicable  and  possible  undertak- 
ing. The  expenditure  would  not  be  large  and 
could  be  provided  by  voluntary  contributions. 
Information  could  thus  be  furnished  for  de- 
bating clubs  in  the  country  schools,  in  all  sorts 
of  social  groups,  and  particularly  in  the  high 
schools  of  the  state,  where  large  numbers  of 
people  could  be  interested  in  considering  the 
facts  and  arguments  concerning  matters  of 
immediate  public  concern.  References  for 
further  study,  the  placing  of  books  required 
in  the  public  libraries  and  the  introduc- 
tion of  these  topics  into  the  University  Ex- 
tension lectures  would  all  help  in  extending 
the  public  information  concerning  public 
affairs. 

[203] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

When  once  this  was  successfully  done,  the 
taking  over  of  the  bulletin  as  a  part  of  the 
educational  work  of  any  state  could  be  easily 
accomplished  and  thereafter  the  most  impor- 
tant instrument  for  public  service  in  a  demo- 
cratic community  would  be  permanently 
secured. 

In  order,  however,  to  promote  any  sort  of 
undertaking,  collective  action  will  be  found 
necessary.  In  order  to  give  effective  support 
to  any  measure,  those  favoring  the  measure 
must  be  organized.  Placing  the  fullest  infor- 
mation in  the  hands  of  all  of  the  people  will 
not  succeed  in  securing  the  desired  result 
unless  the  people  are  associated  together 
for  joint  action  as  rapidly  as  they  come 
into  agreement  concerning  their  convic- 
tions. 

In  Chapter  Fourteen  it  was  seen  that  the 
most  effective  method  of  political  organization 
will  be  found  to  be  along  the  line  of  the  great 
industrial  groups.  Just  because  the  great  mo- 
nopolies are  also  organized  along  the  same  in- 
dustrial lines  and  because  all  the  really  great 
pohtical  questions  arise  out  of  the  conflicts  be- 
[204] 


WHAT  TO  DO 

tween  these  industrial  monopolies  and  the 
people  employed  in  them,  or  the  general  pub- 
lic which  is  robbed  by  them,  it  follows  that  any 
effective  political  organization,  in  order  to 
deal  with  these  matters  whether  in  the  munici- 
pality, the  state  or  nation,  should  be  organized 
along  the  lines  of  the  industrial  groups. 

Nowhere  in  this  country  are  political  parties 
organized  after  this  manner.  At  no  time  will 
a  political  party,  existing  in  behalf  of  the  ex- 
ploiters, be  organized  after  this  manner.  Only 
an  organization  of  useful  people  and  for 
worthy  purposes  could  be  created  and  main- 
tained after  this  manner.  Side  by  side  with 
the  voluntary  effort  to  place  unbiased  infor- 
mation in  the  hands  of  all  must  be  an  effort 
to  create  a  political  party  along  the  lines  of 
these  industrial  interests. 

Parties  created  in  the  interest  of  labor  ought 
to  be  easily  reached  in  this  particular.  The 
party  membership  could  be  classified,  and  each 
industrial  group  be  represented  on  all  cen- 
tral bodies  and  committees,  each  by  its  own 
selected  representative,  subject  to  instruction 
and  recall  by  the  industrial  group  he  would 
represent. 

[205] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

Any  community  which  will  undertake  suc- 
cessfully these  things,  even  in  the  smallest 
municipality,  will  have  laid  the  foundation  for 
the  further  work  which  must  ultimately  bring 
the  completest  victory  to  democracy  and  make 
impossible  any  further  existence  of  despotic 
institutions. 


[206] 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

Constitutional  Amendments 

It  has  been  seen  that  the  evils  of  despotism 
are  inherent  in  the  poHtical  machinery  estab- 
lished by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
These  same  unfortmiate  features  were  ex- 
tended to  the  states.  It  will  be  very  difficult 
to  go  very  far  in  the  work  of  improvement  in 
the  machinery  of  legislation  and  of  adminis- 
tration without  making  certain  very  important 
amendments  to  the  Constitution. 

First  of  all,  both  in  importance  and  in  or- 
der of  their  undertaking,  should  be  the 
initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall. 
Where  these  exist  they  must  be  made  more 
effective  by  universal  political  education  and 
by  the  industrial  group  organization  of  polit- 
ical parties,  and  they  must  be  so  amended  as 
to  guard  against  abuses  under  the  guise  of 
pretended  urgency. 

Amendments  which,  under  the  pretense  of 
safeguarding  the  referendum,  propose  to  limit 

[g07] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

its  operation  are  to  be  opposed.  The  only 
safeguard  needed,  and  the  only  safeguard 
which  can  be  trusted  in  using  these  measures, 
must  be  measures  for  securing  the  universal 
intelligence  of  the  people  of  the  states  which 
adopt  them. 

Where  the  initiative,  the  referendum  and 
the  recall  have  not  been  adopted,  movements 
should  be  pushed  at  once  for  their  adoption. 
These  measures  should  be  extended  constantly 
to  be  made  to  apply  to  all  matters  of  national 
and  of  international  concern. 

In  another  place  will  be  considered  a  method 
of  forcing  the  issue  where  no  provision  now 
exists  under  the  laws  for  the  voluntary  initia- 
tion of  statute  laws  or  of  amendments  to  the 
constitution. 

Wherever  the  initiative  and  referendum  do 
exist,  steps  should  be  taken  to  remove  all  limi- 
tations placed  by  the  people  in  the  constitu- 
tions which,  in  any  way,  limit  the  fields  of 
action  on  the  part  of  the  people  themselves. 

There  ought  to  be  placed  in  all  the  consti- 
tutions as  soon  as  they  can  be  made  really 
democratic  by  the  initiative,  the  referendum, 

[208] 


CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS 

and  the  recall,  a  further  provision.  It  should 
provide  that  the  state,  or  any  political  subdi- 
vision within  the  state,  such  as  a  county,  a 
municipality,  a  township,  a  school  district,  or 
any  combination  of  any  of  these,  may  engage 
in  any  industrial  or  commercial  undertaking 
in  which  any  corporation,  partnership  or  nat- 
ural person  may  engage,  that  it  may  utilize 
the  public  credit  for  that  purpose  and  may 
adopt  any  plans  of  organization  and  manage- 
ment it  may  elect,  on  the  approval  of  the 
majority  vote  of  the  citizens  of  any  such  sub- 
division or  subdivisions,  at  an  election  which 
shall  be  held  by  the  regular  authorities  of  any 
such  subdivision  or  subdivisions  on  petition  of 
a  number  of  voters  within  any  such  territory 
equal  to  say,  fifteen  per  cent  of  the  total  vote 
cast  in  the  last  preceding  election. 

These  provisions  once  in  existence  and  tak- 
ing advantage  of  them  where  they  do  exist, 
and  as  fast  as  they  shall  be  brought  into  exist- 
ence, will  make  possible  the  immediate 
beginnings  of  industrial  democracy. 

Once  the  beginning  is  made,  successful 
experiments   within   the   limitation   of   small 

[209] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

territories  will  speedily  justify  the  larger 
undertakings. 

Remaining  provisions  in  the  forms  of  gov- 
ernment intended  to  obstruct  the  public  will, 
like  the  assumed  and  final  authority  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  its  life  tenure  in  office  and  the 
absurdity  of  an  upper  house  in  all  the  states 
and  in  the  nation  itself,  would  speedily  dis- 
appear as  their  obstructive  relations  to  the  real 
activities  of  the  people  would  be  made  more 
evident. 

No  authority  could  be  regarded  any  longer 
as  supreme  as  against  the  popular  will,  ex- 
pressed in  intelligent  and  effective  majorities. 
Universal  suffrage  would  speedily  follow.  The 
initiative  and  referendum  would  enable  its 
advocates  to  keep  the  question  constantly  be- 
fore the  public  until  universal  suffrage  would 
be  given, — suffrage,  independent  of  sex,  race, 
creed,  education,  property  qualification  or  the 
payment  of  taxes. 

All  this  would  follow  rapidly  once  the  initial 
conditions  in  real  industrial  democracy  were 
securely  established. 


[210] 


CHAPTER  XIX 

Publicly  Owned  Industrlajl  Enterprises 

It  has  been  seen  that  so  long  as  the  private 
ownership  of  natural  resources  and  the  means 
of  transportation,  manufacture,  storage,  and 
exchange  are  subject  to  private  monopoly 
ownership  and  control,  that  long  industrial 
despotism  must  remain. 

The  only  effective  way  of  escape  ever  under- 
taken to  relieve  the  community  from  the  mis- 
fortunes of  any  such  private  monopoly  has 
been  to  establish  a  public  enterprise  in  its 
place. 

In  undertaking  the  creation  of  such  public 
enterprises,  it  will  be  found  the  part  of  wis- 
dom to  make  the  attack  upon  those  private 
monopolies  whose  robbery  is  most  evident, 
whose  administrations  have  been  most  des- 
potic, whose  position  in  the  public  mind  is 
the  most  unpopular  and,  if  possible,  monopo- 
lies against  which  there  are  great  social  and 
moral  reasons  for  public  interference. 

[211] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

It  will  also  be  found  sound  tactics  never  to 
present  the  case  as  simply  one  of  prohibiting 
evils  but  always  one  of  securing  benefits. 

For  the  sake  of  an  illustration,  take  those 
great  industries  which  involve  a  gi*eat  hazard 
of  life,  property,  the  public  health  or  the  pub- 
lic morals,  because  they  deal  in  explosives,  poi- 
sons, narcotics,  opiates  or  intoxicants.  Among 
the  most  infamous  of  the  great  American  mo- 
nopolies may  be  named  the  Oil  Trust,  the 
Powder  Trust,  the  Tobacco  Trust,  the  Drugs 
and  Medicine  Trust  and,  finally,  the  Drink 
Trust. 

Concerning  all  these  it  may  be  said  that  they 
have  no  friends;  that  where  they  render  a 
needed  social  service  they  do  it  with  great  loss 
of  life,  make  exorbitant  charges,  maintain  in- 
famous conditions  of  employment,  and  are 
known  to  be  so  related  to  the  political  activi- 
ties of  the  country  that  all  the  way  from  the 
corruption  funds  of  these  great  industrial  des- 
pots to  their  unclean  and  infamous  political 
club  house,  the  subsidized  drinking  saloon, 
which  is  the  rallying  point  and  the  only  mar- 
ket-place for  large  groups  of  corruptly  in- 
fluenced   and    helpless    voters, — everywhere 

[212] 


INDUSTRIAL  ENTERPRISES 

public  sentiment  is  against  these  monopolies. 
A  reasonable  proposal  to  establish  public 
enterprises  in  the  place  of  any  or  all  of  these 
without  the  confiscation  of  private  property, 
with  guaranteed  re-employment  for  displaced 
labor  and  proper  safeguards  against  misuse 
or  accident,  would  be  carried  by  over- 
whelming majorities  in  any  portion  of  the 
country. 

But  better  even  than  the  support  which 
could  be  relied  upon  because  of  the  great  un- 
popularity of  these  monopolies  would  be  the 
great  benefits  which  could  be  promised 
through  such  public  enterprises.  Oil,  powder, 
medicines,  tobacco  and  intoxicating  beverages, 
free  from  adulteration  and  at  the  actual  cost 
of  production  and  delivery  to  the  final  con- 
sumer, would  bring  enormous  savings  at  once 
to  the  community,  would  enormously  increase 
the  demand  for  labor,  enormously  advance  the 
standard  of  living,  but,  best  of  all,  would  re- 
move at  once  all  personal  motive  on  the  part 
of  any  to  endanger,  to  poison  or  to  corrupt 
another  in  any  of  these  vmdertakings  for  the 
sake  of  a  private  profit. 

[213] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

That  once  done  and  under  the  initiative  and 
referendum,  prohibition  would  prevail  as  far 
and  as  fast  as  the  evil  of  intoxicants  could  be 
really  appreciated,  and  an  informed  public 
could  act  accordingly,  free  from  the  interfer- 
ence of  private  interests,  either  in  the  enact- 
ment or  in  the  administration  of  prohibitory 
legislation. 

Take  the  matter  of  the  privately  appro- 
priated ground  rents  derived  from  natural 
resources,  the  gift  of  nature,  and  from  advan- 
tages of  location,  the  achievements  of  society. 
They  are  enormous.  They  probably  amount 
each  year  to  more  than  the  value  of  one-fourth 
of  all  the  products  of  human  labor.  But  any 
campaign  simply  to  prevent  their  private  ap- 
propriation cannot  possibly  have  the  grip  nor 
power  that  a  campaign  would  have,  which 
would  offer  to  use  these  ground  rents  to  pro- 
vide a  rational  existence  for  the  young,  the 
aged  and  the  disabled,  to  open  up  farms 
equipped  with  stock  and  tools  as  self-support- 
ing, "going  concerns,"  and  to  build  homes  with 
all  modem  conveniences  in  the  midst  of  parks 
and  boulevards,  with  every  social  and  educa- 
[214] 


INDUSTRIAL  ENTERPRISES 

tional  advantage  and  to  place  these  within  the 
easy  and  certain  reach  of  all. 

It  may  be  difficult  to  interest  the  millions  of 
imemployed  in  theories  about  ground  rents. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  interest  them  in  any  rea- 
sonable provision  for  their  own  employment 
on  terms  where  they  may  have  for  themselves 
all  the  wealth  created  by  their  own  labor,  with 
this  labor  reasonably  equipped  by  funds  pro- 
vided simply  by  appropriating  for  the  com- 
mon good  the  ground  rents  which  are  pri- 
vately appropriated,  to  the  demoralization  of 
those  who  get  them  and  to  the  impoverishment 
of  those  who  create  them. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  whole  field  of  trans- 
portation, of  mining,  of  manufactures  and  of 
finance. 

Public  enterprise,  once  undertaken,  with 
the  powers  of  the  state  unshackled,  with  the 
resources  of  the  nation  at  command,  industrial 
despotism,  which  is  both  the  motor  and  the  mo- 
tive back  of  all  forms  of  political  despotism, 
would  rapidly  disappear,  while  industrial  de- 
mocracy would  become  its  inevitable  successor 
at  every  step  in  the  process. 
[215] 


CHAPTER  XX 

InDUSTRIAI.  RErRESENTATION 

The  great  business  body,  called  the  state, 
has  never  yet  even  attempted  to  make  up  a 
statement  of  its  assets  and  liabilities.  It  has 
never  yet  made  up,  or  tried  to  make  up,  a 
statement  of  its  receipts  and  expenditures.  In 
no  such  partial  statement  have  the  values  cre- 
ated by  society  ever  been  mentioned  as  being 
the  real  income  of  society. 

In  no  such  statement  have  those  who  have 
rendered  all  the  sen^ice  in  production  been 
listed  as  the  only  claimants  against  the  prod- 
ucts and  services  so  provided. 

In  the  bookkeeping  of  the  modern  state, 
the  principal  charges  against  the  social  income 
are  for  items  entirely  unearned  and  therefore 
if  entered  on  the  debit  side,  the  national  ledger 
could  have  no  corresponding  credit  entry 
against  which  to  make  a  balance.  If  the  ac- 
countants of  the  national  life  were  to  enter 
both  the  debits  of  the  exploiters  and  the  cred- 

[216] 


INDUSTRIAL  REPRESENTATION 

its  of  the  producers,  the  immediate  bankruptcy 
of  the  exploiters  and  the  immediate  solvency 
of  the  producers  would  be  established.  It  is 
only  by  the  crooked  bookkeeping  of  the  serv- 
ants of  private  monopoly  that  this  result  is 
avoided.  It  is  by  refusing  the  proper  entries 
in  the  collective  accounts  of  the  nation  that  a 
forced  and  dishonest  balance  is  made  to  appear. 
Under  the  public  ownership  of  the  great 
industries  these  great  items  could  no  longer 
be  kept  from  the  pages  of  the  national  ac- 
counts. As  public  enterprise  succeeds  private 
monopoly  in  the  great  industries,  honest  "pub- 
licity" will  become  a  possibility. 

But  as  private  ownership  disappears,  pri- 
vate control  must  also  disappear  in  these  indus- 
tries. In  the  same  way,  as  public  ownership 
is  extended,  public  control  becomes  inevitable. 
But  that  means  either  a  despotic  or  demo- 
cratic control  of  the  industries. 

State  ownership  under  a  despotism  still 
means  despotic  management  of  the  state- 
owned  industries.  State  ownership  under  a 
democracy  must  mean  democratic  manage- 
ment of  the  industries.    Industrial  democracy 

[217] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

must  prevail  in  a  democratic  state.  Hence,  in- 
dustrial representation  in  the  government  be- 
comes essential  to  democracy  just  in  the  pro- 
portion that  the  government  becomes  the  con- 
trolling factor  in  the  industries. 

The  public  ownership  of  the  industries  pre- 
sents no  serious  problem.  That  has  been  ac- 
complished in  many  nations  and  in  many 
undertakings.  All  of  the  real  difficulties  are 
found  in  the  solution  of  the  problems  involved 
in  the  democratic  management  of  the  indus- 
tries. The  unhampered  civil  rights  of  pubKc 
employees,  their  special  right  to  be  heard  in 
the  industries  or  occupations  in  which  they  are 
employed,  their  right  to  be  represented  in  the 
city,  state  and  nation  through  the  collective 
voice  of  the  industries  in  which  they  are  em- 
ployed, the  citizen's  right  to  employment  in  the 
occupation  of  his  choice, — none  of  these  are 
possible  without  the  public  ownership  of  the 
great  monopolized  industries.  The  public  own- 
ership of  the  great  monopolized  industries 
without  these  is  possible  only  under  a  political 
despotism. 

Public  ownership  once  established,  then  the 

[218] 


INDUSTRIAL  REPRESENTATION 

public  ledger  must  take  account  of  all  the 
services  rendered  in  behalf  of  the  common 
welfare.  These  items  will  make  up  the  credit 
side  of  the  individual's  account  and  the  debit 
side  of  the  public  ledger.  Once  public  owner- 
ship is  established,  the  public  ledger  must  take 
account  of  all  the  services  rendered  or  articles 
of  use  provided  by  society  to  the  individual. 
These  items  will  make  up  the  credit  side  of 
the  public  ledger  and  the  debit  side  of  the  indi- 
vidual account.  Then  all  accounts  must  bal- 
ance and  justice  will  at  last  be  done. 

But  it  is  not  only  true  that  both  public  and 
private  accounts  will  at  last  be  made  both 
simple  and  honest.  It  is  also  true  that  the 
public  laws,  defining  and  enforcing  personal 
and  property  rights,  will  be  so  simple  that 
those  who  are  expected  to  obey  them  will  be 
able  to  understand  them  and  their  justice  will 
become  so  evident  that  the  enforcement  of  the 
public  law  will  never  again  be  made  the  means 
of  making  public  enemies. 

The  laws  affecting  the  ownership  and  con- 
trol of  privately  owned  but  collectively  used 
railways  and  steamship  lines  would  make  a 

[219] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

library,  and  no  judge  or  lawyer  can  ever  learn 
them  well  enough  so  that  his  knowledge  ever 
gets  beyond  an  "opinion,"  while  the  laws 
affecting  the  publicly  owned  and  collectively 
used  post  office  service  can  all  be  written  on  an 
ordinary  page,  and  can  be  so  easily  under- 
stood that  not  a  single  judge  or  attorney  at 
law  on  all  the  earth  is  able  to  make  a  living 
writing  "opinions"  of  what  he  thinks  they 
mean. 

From  all  the  foregoing  is  it  not  agreed  that 
in  the  order  of  advance,  close  on  the  heels  of 
publicly  owned  industrial  enterprises  must 
come  representation  of  the  industrial  or  occu- 
pational groups  in  the  management  of  public 
affairs  ? 

As  in  most  other  political  matters  the  place 
to  make  this  beginning  is  in  the  municipality. 
Instead  of  further  punishing  public  employees 
for  pernicious  activity  in  politics,  give  them 
direct  representation  in  the  city,  the  state,  the 
nation.  Enlarge  the  field  of  public  ownership. 
Extend  the  field  of  industrial  representation. 
Neither  is  possible  in  a  democratic  state  with- 
out the  other.    To  extend  either  is  to  promote 

[no] 


INDUSTRIAL  REPRESENTATION 

the  other.  That  is  the  way  to  industrial  de- 
mocracy. In  the  modern  industrial  state, 
political  democracy  without  industrial  democ- 
racy cannot  possibly  abide. 


[221] 


CHAPTER  XXI 

Democeacy  in  World  Politics 

There  are  two  general  notions  of  world  pol- 
itics. 

One  of  them  is  that  the  way  to  maintain  the 
peace  is  to  make  a  large  number  of  independ- 
ent nations  and  to  make  each  of  these  so  strong 
that  all  the  others  will  be  afraid  of  it  and  so, 
disposed  to  keep  the  peace. 

When  any  nation  is  too  small  to  hope  to 
be  able  to  become  a  "terror  to  evil  doers"  in 
other  nations,  it  is  expected  to  become  a  de- 
pendent on  some  nation  which  is  the  "military 
menace  of  the  world"  or  the  "acknowledged 
mistress  of  the  seas." 

This  "preparedness"  and  these  alliances  in 
dealing  with  international  matters  are  in  all 
countries  under  the  control  of  those  who  are 
seeking  to  get  something  out  of  other  coun- 
tries which  they  expect  the  other  countries  to 
be  willing  to  fight  for,  rather  than  to  yield — 
and,  hence,  "preparedness"  for  such  an  event 


DEMOCRACY  IN  WORLD  POLITICS 

is  everywhere  the  policy  of  "burglars,"  of  in- 
dustrial monopolies,  and  all  others  who  hope  to 
do  forbidden  things  on  forbidden  ground. 

Sometimes  this  policy  has  kept  the  peace 
within  some  one  country  by  making  it  the  mili- 
tary lord  of  all  the  earth  and  then  by  keeping 
all  the  earth  too  weak  and  too  poor  to  make 
rebellion  possible.  But  peace  of  this  sort  is 
only  possible  by  maintaining  conditions  under 
which  such  a  peace  is  even  more  unendurable 
than  is  war. 

In  the  end  every  such  a  world  peace  has 
always  ended  in  bloodshed  and  in  confusion 
and  chaos.  Even  then,  its  ending  was  better 
than  its  being. 

The  other  general  notion  of  world  politics  is 
that  war  is  always  because  of  insanity  or  be- 
cause someone  is  trying  to  get  what  does  not 
belong  to  him  or  to  keep  what  he  ought  not 
to  have  gotten. 

So  far  as  these  causes  operate  they  are  usu- 
ally mixed  and  always  confused  so  that  in  the 
turmoil  of  battle  it  is  never  possible  to  get  a 
statement  of  the  cause  or  purpose  of  any  war 
to  which  both  sides  will  agree,  and  the  chief 

[223] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

task  of  all  the  historians  of  all  the  wars  has 
been  to  find  out  "what  it  was  all  about." 

Nevertheless,  it  is  believed  that  if  an  inter- 
national power  could  be  established  which 
could  give  to  all  what  really  belongs  to  them 
and  could  prevent  any  from  successfully  taking 
the  advantage  of  any  other,  that  then  the  in- 
sane could  be  restrained,  once  the  plunderers 
were  excluded,  and  world  peace  could  be  main- 
tained. 

The  real  problem  then  in  world  politics  is  to 
establish  some  sort  of  a  world  agency  by  which 
those  questions  which  might  lead  to  war  if  not 
justly  settled,  may  be  settled,  not  when  war 
is  threatened,  but  as  they  arise  and,  hence,  be- 
fore any  threats  are  necessary. 

The  great  questions  of  international  contro- 
versy are  industrial  and  economic  in  their  char- 
acter. But  these  questions  always  involve  the 
industries  or  the  occupations  of  the  people 
concerned. 

The  miners  of  all  nations  have  interests  in 
common.  So  do  the  transport  workers,  the 
manufacturers,  the  producers  of  cotton,  of 
wool,  of  dairy  products,  of  wheat  and  corn.  The 

[  224  ] 


DEMOCRACY  IN  WORLD  POLITICS 

international  organizations  of  labor  do  now 
have  interests  in  common,  regardless  of  inter- 
national boundary  lines.  All  such  organiza- 
tions are  interested  in  raising  the  standards  of 
living  in  all  countries  in  order  to  maintain  or 
to  further  advance  the  standards  of  living  in 
their  own  countries. 

It  is  only  the  exploiters  in  one  country  who 
really  hope  to  profit  by  the  injury  of  the  indus- 
tries or  enterprises  of  other  countries.  The  real 
international  interests  are  the  same  with  the 
useful  workers  in  all  the  industries.  So  far  the 
power  to  deal  with  international  questions  has 
been  in  the  hands  of  the  exploiters  only.  The 
industrial  despots  are  the  political  masters  of 
all  international  affairs.  There  is  no  democ- 
racy in  world  politics.  Industrial  despotism  in 
any  country  can  do  nothing  less  than  to  pro- 
voke war  with  other  countries.  Industrial  de- 
mocracy once  established  in  any  country,  that 
country  has  henceforth  no  interest  in  the  spoils 
of  war.  The  achievements  of  industry  in  all 
countries  with  equitable  exchange  between  all 
countries  will  at  once  become  its  greatest 
advantage. 

But  industrial  democracy  cannot  be  estab- 

[  225  ] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

lished  in  any  country  without  the  workers  in 
all  the  industries  in  that  country  becoming  at 
once  missionaries  for  its  like  establishment  in 
all  countries,  while  by  its  example  the  workers 
in  all  industries  in  all  other  countries  will  be 
encouraged  either  to  seek  like  advantages  in 
their  own  countries  or  to  bring  their  allegiance 
and  their  power  to  serve,  to  the  country  which 
has  become  self-governing  in  its  industries. 

With  the  coming  of  the  public  ownership  and 
democratic  management  of  the  great  industrial 
and  commercial  monopolies,  the  great  privately 
owned  exploiting  monopolies  would  utterly 
disappear.  When  they  cease  to  exist  in  any 
country,  they  must  necessarily  cease  to  intrigue 
or  to  conspire  in  any  scheme  of  international 
wrong  doing  which  would  require  "prepared- 
ness" to  destroy  life,  rather  than  to  provide  for 
the  common  welfare.  Industrial  representa- 
tion in  any  nation  will  at  once  create  the  public 
authorities  within  that  nation  best  calculated 
to  seek  for  peace  on  a  basis  of  economic  justice 
between  all  the  nations. 

That  will  be  the  beginning  of  international, 
industrial  democracy.  The  natural  extension 
[226] 


DEMOCRACY  IN  WORLD  POLITICS 

of  the  democratic  control  of  the  industries  from 
the  enterprises  within  any  given  nation  until  it 
shall  reach  and  win  all  nations  will  make  an 
end  of  the  economic  causes  of  war.  It  will 
create  an  international  democratic  power  able 
to  do  justice  to  those  who  serve  and  to  restrain 
those  who  attempt  to  make  the  peaceful  work- 
ers of  the  world  the  victims  of  international 
insanity. 


[zrt] 


CHAPTER  XXII 

Forcing  the  Issue 

It  has  been  seen  how  the  forms  of  partisan 
organization  and  the  usual  modes  of  procedure 
under  constitutional  forms  of  government  to- 
gether with  the  surviving  hereditary  powers  in 
the  modern  state,  are  all  opposed  to  efficiency 
in  the  administration  of  the  public  will. 

A  change  in  any  of  these  constitutional  and 
established  forms  of  government  cannot  be 
undertaken  without  the  consent  of  hereditary 
and  established  powers,  and  this  consent  they 
refuse  to  give. 

If  self-government  is  to  prevail  at  all,  it 
would  seem  that  unusual,  arbitrary,  and  revolu- 
tionary measures  must  be  undertaken.  How- 
ever, a  closer  examination  reveals  the  fact  that 
all  hereditary  privileges  and  special  powers  in 
the  state  depend  for  their  continued  existence 
upon  the  continued  consent  of  the  common 
people. 

According  to  the  forms  of  law,  the  common 

[  228  ] 


FORCING  THE  ISSUE 

people  cannot  proceed  without  the  consent  of 
courts,  senates,  cabinets  and  Houses  of  Lords, 
which  hold  their  power  without  the  consent  of 
those  most  concerned.  On  the  other  hand,  ac- 
cording to  the  facts,  the  forces  and  the  politi- 
cal powers  inherent  in  the  situation,  these  spe- 
cial privileges  and  powers  cannot  continue  to 
exist  without  the  continued  consent  of  those 
who  are  the  special  victims  of  these  special 
privileges  and  powers. 

Is  there  any  way  by  which  this  necessary 
consent  of  the  many  may  be  withheld  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  compel  the  few  to  surrender  to 
the  necessities  of  the  many  in  such  a  way  as 
to  make  the  intelligent  and  deliberate  voice  of 
the  many  the  law  of  all? 

Public  officers  are  supposed  to  be  public 
servants.  The  oath  of  office  involves  a  pledge 
that  they  vnW  be  the  servants  of  the  public. 
Servants  of  the  public  must  do  the  public  will. 

The  right  to  petition  is  a  well-established 
right  in  all  popular  forms  of  government,  but 
the  very  forms  of  the  usual  petitions  carry  with 
them  the  suggestion  that  the  petitioners  are 
subjects,  not  citizens,  and  those  to  whom  the 
[229] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

petitions  are  addressed  are  masters  with  the 
power  to  grant  or  to  withhold  what  the  peti- 
tioners ask  for. 

Again,  the  petitioners  usually  represent  cer- 
tain minorities  or  certain  influences  or  interests 
believed  to  be  of  more  or  less  importance  in  so- 
ciety. Minorities  may  respectfully  petition, 
but  majorities  ought  not  to  petition.  Majori- 
ties are  masters.  Masters  do  not  petition,  they 
command. 

It  is  a  frequent  practice  in  seeking  to  secure 
the  adoption  of  a  new  law  to  pledge  in  advance 
candidates  for  the  legislature  to  support  such 
a  measure  if  elected.  Is  it  not  possible  instead 
of  seeking  to  pledge  the  candidate,  to  proceed 
instead,  to  command  those  already  in  office  and 
to  do  so  with  such  numbers  and  by  such  impera- 
tive action  as  to  make  it  impossible  that  the 
command  should  be  ignored  or  the  desired 
services  refused? 

Remember  that  the  first  essential  is  to  re- 
cover the  power  to  give  or  to  withhold  the 
consent  of  the  governed  as  related  to  particular 
measures. 

The  democratic  doctrine  is  that  all  govern- 
[230] 


FORCING  THE  ISSUE 

merits  "derive  their  just  powers  from  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed,"  that  is,  from  the  consent 
of  the  governed  to  participate  in  the  govern- 
ment, not  their  consent  to  submit  to  an  outside 
and  superimposed  authority. 

This  power  to  give  or  to  withhold  the  consent 
of  the  governed  is  the  very  heart  and  soul  of 
civic  power. 

Remember,  further,  that  with  the  initiative 
and  referendum  once  established  and  made  to 
apply  to  constitutional  amendments  as  well  as 
to  the  statute  laws,  together  with  the  right  to 
recall  and  that  made  to  apply  to  judges  or  to 
the  decisions  of  judges,  there  will  thereafter  be 
no  occasion  for  forcing  any  issue  by  any  means 
not  then  provided  for  under  the  law. 

This  being  the  case,  this  chapter  is  only  of 
importance  where  the  initiative,  the  referendum 
and  the  recall  are  not  yet  established  or  where 
they  exist  under  limitations  of  some  sort  which 
make  them  practically  valueless. 

Wherever  these  laws  do  not  exist,  the  first  of 
all  battles  is  to  secure  them.  The  agitation  in 
their  behalf  must  first  be  carried  to  a  point 
where  it  is  certain  that  the  overwhelming  ma- 

[231] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

jority  of  the  people  are  ready  to  make  battle 
for  them.  To  secure  a  ballot  previous  to  such 
an  agitation,  would  be  a  misfortune  rather  than 
a  victory. 

The  law  should  be  first  prepared  in  the  form 
of  a  constitutional  amendment,  and  the  usual 
effort  should  be  made  to  secure  its  submission 
to  the  vote  of  the  people  for  its  adoption.  If 
the  legislature  refuses  or  if  the  great  private 
interests  apply  obstructive  tactics  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  its  submission  impossible 
through  legislative  action,  then  as  a  last  resort 
a  pledge-petition  could  be  prepared,  substan- 
tially as  follows : 

PLEDGE-PETITION 

"We,  the  undersigned  qualified  voters  in  the 

state  of petition  all  our  fellow  citizens 

in  this  state  to  join  in  the  use  of  their  power  as 
citizens  to  compel  the  submission  of  the  fol- 
lowing amendment  to  the  constitution  of  this 
state  to  a  vote  of  the  people,  amendment  being 
as  follows: 

"Be  it  enacted  (form  of  the  amendment) . 

"In  consideration  of  the  refusal  of  the  state 
legislature  to  submit  this  amendment  to  the 

[232] 


FORCING  THE  ISSUE 

constitution  to  the  vote  of  the  citizens  of  this 
state,  notwithstanding  the  overwhelming  pubhc 
majority  known  to  favor  this  amendment,  and 
because  we  deem  this  amendment  to  be  of  such 
urgent  and  immediate  importance,  we  pledge 
ourselves,  to  each  other  and  to  the  state  never 
to  vote  for  the  re-election  of  the  Governor  to 
his  present  office  nor  to  any  other  office  for 
which  he  may  at  any  time  become  a  candidate 
unless  he  shall  himself  sign  this  pledge-peti- 
tion, and  shall  call  a  special  session  of  the  legis- 
lature in  order  to  secure  immediately  the  sub- 
mission of  this  amendment. 

*'Nor  shall  we  ever  vote  for  any  member 
of  the  present  legislature  for  re-election  to 
office  or  to  any  other  office  for  which  any  such 
member  may  be,  hereafter,  a  candidate,  unless 
he  shall  sign  this  pledge  and  vote  for  the  sub- 
mission of  this  amendment  and  support  and 
vote  for  the  amendment  as  a  citizen. 

"Should  such  a  special  session  be  secured  or 
should  the  legislature  hereafter  be  found  in 
session  for  any  other  purpose,  then  this  amend- 
ment must  be  submitted  without  alteration  or 
modification  in  any  way. 

"We  further  and  finally  pledge  ourselves  to 

[233] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

each  other  never  to  vote  for  any  man  for  any 
office,  whatsoever,  who  now  being  a  citizen  of 
this  state,  shall  neglect  or  refuse  to  sign  this 
pledge  and  to  support  in  every  reasonable  way 
the  enactment  of  this  law. 

"This  pledge-petition,  however,  shall  be 
binding  on  no  one  and  shall  be  enforced  in  no 
particular  whatsoever  until  it  shall  have  been 
signed  by  a  number  of  qualified  voters  equal 
to  fifty-one  percent  of  the  votes  polled  in  this 
state  in  the  last  election  preceding  the  presenta- 
tion of  this  petition,  after  which  time  all  of  the 
provisions  of  this  pledge-petition  shall  come 
into  force  and  shall  remain  in  force  until  this 
amendment  shall  have  been  submitted  and,  by 
the  vote  of  the  people,  shall  have  been  made 
a  part  of  the  constitution  of  this  State." 

In  considering  the  advantages  of  this  method 
of  forcing  an  issue  in  spite  of  political  machines 
and  in  defiance  of  the  great  private  interests 
in  control  of  political  machines,  it  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  it  is  proposed  only  as  a  last 
resort. 

It  is  admitted  that  pledging  candidates  is  a 
frequent  and  effective  method  of  procedure, 
[234] 


FORCING  THE  ISSUE 

but  this  must  have  failed,  or  the  legislature 
would  have  submitted  the  amendment  without 
a  resort  to  such  a  drastic  measure  as  is  here 
proposed. 

It  is  admitted  that  politicians  frequently 
make  pledges  carelessly  and  as  carelessly  aban- 
don them,  but  this  pledge-petition  is  not  taken 
to  the  politician  at  all  except  as  he  is  also  one 
of  the  citizens. 

It  asks  nothing  of  the  Governor  or  of  the 
legislators  or  of  candidates  which  it  does  not 
ask  of  all.  It  is  both  a  pledge  and  a  petition. 
It  is  a  pledge  with  teeth  and  a  "petition  with 
boots  on." 

It  is  admitted  that  it  is  a  great  and  an  ex- 
pensive task  to  secure  a  majority  of  all  the 
citizens  in  any  state  to  sign  any  sort  of  a 
document,  but  it  is  not  so  great  a  task,  nor 
is  it  so  expensive  as  would  be  a  resort  to  arms, 
nor  is  it  so  serious  a  matter  as  would  be  a 
further  surrender  to  the  despotism  of  the 
private  interests  now  in  control  of  public 
affairs. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  this  is  the  turn- 
ing point  away  from  democracy  and  toward  the 
[235] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

hopelessness  of  despotism  or  away  from  des- 
potism and  toward  the  perfection  and  triumph 
of  democracy. 

Any  task  is  not  too  great  for  such  a  reward. 
Any  sacrifice,  even  the  horrors  of  civil  war, 
would  be  better  than  so  serious  a  surrender. 
Self-government  is  a  serious  undertaking. 
Those  who  would  have  self-government  must 
pay  the  price.  Liberty  has  never  been  cheaply 
obtained.  It  is  almost  always  cheaply  lost.  It 
is  absurd  to  suppose  that  free  institutions  are 
worth  the  gift  of  life  itself  and  that  the  mere 
asking  for  them  under  such  a  pledge-petition 
could  not  be  secured  in  a  state  fit  for  self 
control. 

A  state  which  could  not  secure  these  signa- 
tures after  a  reasonable  effort  for  so  great  a 
prize  would  not  be  an  instance  of  freemen 
doomed  to  bondage.  It  would  be  an  instance 
of  a  state  where  citizens  were  voluntary  slaves 
unworthy  of  freedom. 

The  war  between  democracy  and  despotism 
is  to  the  death.  If  self-government  cannot  be 
secured  by  this  program  and  a  violent  revo- 
lution is  not  to  follow,  then  all  the  wrongs  of 
despotism  must  at  last  prevail. 
[236] 


FORCING  THE  ISSUE 

It  is  admitted  that  even  good  citizens  do  not 
like  to  sign  pledges,  and  it  is  further  admitted 
that  the  promise  not  to  vote  for  anyone  for  any 
office  at  any  time  is  a  very  drastic  proposal. 
But  it  is  better  to  join  in  the  promise  not  to 
vote  for  those  who  consent  to  be  the  agents  of 
the  selfish  interests  as  against  self-government 
than  it  would  be  to  join  in  organized  rebellion 
which  would  be  the  only  other  alternative  if 
some  such  drastic  means  were  not  adopted  to 
avoid  either  bloodshed  or  treason  to  democracy. 

Those  who  want  self-government  ought  to 
join  in  this  last  resort  in  an  effort  to  secure  a 
possible  escape  from  despotic  usurpations. 
Those  who  do  not  want  self-government  ought 
not  to  ask  for,  and  if  they  do,  they  ought  not 
to  be  given  the  support  of  those  who  do  want 
self-government.  This  is  nothing  more  than  a 
proposal  to  use  the  full  power  of  the  elective 
franchise  to  protect  free  institutions  against 
these  most  vicious  and  dangerous  enemies,  who 
through  their  economic  power  are  rapidly  con- 
verting all  democratic  states  into  political 
despotisms. 

The  pledge-petition  is  not  to  go  into  effect 
[  237  ] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

SO  as  to  be  binding  on  anyone  until  a  majority 
of  all  the  voters  interested  enough  in  public 
affairs  to  have  voted  at  all  in  a  previous  elec- 
tion shall  have  signed  it. 

If  any  citizen  still  then  is  unwilling  to  be 
guided  by  a  majority  so  obtained  he  cannot  be 
at  all  in  favor  of  majority  rule,  and  has  no 
right  to  ask  for  the  consideration  of  those  who 
do  stand  for  and  are  ready  to  defend  democ- 
racy. He  is  a  despot,  or  the  slave  of  a  despot, 
and  should  be  treated  for  what  he  really  is. 

A  citizen  of  any  state  who  will  not  join  in  an 
effort  to  make  it  altogether  free  is  by  that  re- 
fusal proven  to  be  unfit  to  be  the  servant  of  a 
free  state. 


[2S8] 


PART  V 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

A  Summary  and  the  Conclusion 

To  those  who  have  read  the  foregoing: 

You  are  my  fellow  citizens.  It  may  be  in 
the  city,  state  or  nation.  In  any  event,  you  are 
my  fellow  citizens  in  the  longed  for  Democratic 
Federation  of  the  World. 

You  have  seen  how  inevitable  it  is  that  there 
should  be  a  government  of  some  sort. 

You  have  seen  how  a  peaceful,  orderly  and 
full-rounded  human  existence  is  impossible 
without  the  state,  and  that  the  final  power  in 
the  state  must  fall  to  a  special  privileged  minor- 
ity, or  to  the  majority  of  all. 

You  have  seen  that  government  exists  be- 
cause of  the  collective  interests  of  all  the  peo- 
ple and  that  it  must  be  responsible  for  the  pro- 
tection, the  promotion  and  the  administration 
of  these  interests. 

You  have  seen  that  any  possible  form  of  gov- 
ernment as  related  to  any  possible  form  of 
collective  interests  must  be  either  despotic  or 
democratic,  must  be  made  up  of  associated 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

freemen,  or  of  masters  and  slaves,  and  that 
between  these  there  can  be  no  lasting  compro- 
mise. 

You  have  seen  that  the  greatest  of  all  col- 
lective interests  of  the  people  are  those  which 
have  to  do  with  the  great  tasks  involved  in 
making  a  living.  You  have  seen  that  the  elec- 
tive franchise  is  nothing  other  than  one's  right 
to  be  heard  and  to  be  taken  account  of  in  the 
matters  which  concern  him. 

You  have  seen  that  the  state  is  only  a  busi- 
ness body  seeking  to  transact  the  collective 
business  of  all  the  people,  a  business  corpora- 
tion in  which  every  citizen  is  an  equal  share- 
holder and  among  whose  assets  are  all  the 
resources  of  the  earth. 

You  have  seen  how  political  parties  become 
a  necessity  in  the  collective  action  of  those 
whose  collective  interests  come  into  conflict 
with  the  collective  interests  of  others. 

You  have  seen  how  the  industrial  despots 
have  captured  control  through  their  economic 
power  and  have  provided  obstructive  and  im- 
possible forms  of  procedure  both  for  political 
parties  and  for  constitutional  governments. 

You  have  seen  how  free  institutions  make 
[242] 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION 

absolutely  necessary  universal  political  educa- 
tion, how  those  who  do  not  understand  are  as 
dangerous  to  the  public  good  as  those  who  are 
deliberately  corrupt. 

You  have  seen  how  a  citizenship  firmly  estab- 
lished for  all,  actually  realized  by  all,  and  free 
from  espionage,  corruption  or  fraud,  is  essen- 
tial to  a  self-governing  state. 

You  have  seen  how  an  intelligent  majority 
may  always  be  made  the  actual  masters  of  the 
state,  and  how  that  majority  may  enforce  its 
will  through  a  constant  control  of  the  activities 
of  the  government. 

You  have  seen  how  and  why  the  political 
party  can  and  ought  to  be  made  responsible  to 
the  great  industries  or  occupations  in  which  the 
useful  people  of  the  world  are  all  employed,  not 
to  the  private  monopolies  which  own  them,  but 
to  the  people  who,  through  these  occupations, 
render  the  social  services  which  make  life  pos- 
sible. 

You  have  seen  how  in  the  order  of  advance 
in  the  fight  for  democracy,  the  practical  path 
is  from  the  smaller  to  the  larger  things,  from 
the  municipality  to  the  state,  the  nation  and  the 
world, 

[243] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

You  have  seen  how  a  voluntary  group  of  citi- 
zens can  reach  all  the  people  with  both  sides  of 
the  great  questions  of  current  controversy  and 
can  make  the  many  understand  the  need  for 
action. 

You  have  seen  what  constitutional  amend- 
ments are  of  fundamental  importance  in  the 
extension  of  democracy. 

You  have  seen  how  publicly  owned  indus- 
trial enterprises  can  be  undertaken  and  how 
representation  in  the  government  of  the  indus- 
trial or  occupational  groups  in  the  publicly 
owned  industrial  undertakings  must  necessarily 
follow. 

You  have  seen  how  the  international  char- 
acter of  the  great  industrial  and  commercial  ac- 
tivities will  necessarily  make  a  world  democ- 
racy, when  once  industrial  democracy  is  suc- 
cessfully established  anywhere. 

And,  finally,  you  have  seen  that  the  people 
are  not  dependent  on  the  consent  of  the  indus- 
trial despots,  the  political  machines,  the  sen- 
ators, "lords,"  or  courts,  nor  is  their  overthrow 
by  force  necessary  in  order  to  make  an  end  of 
their  despotic  sway  and  a  real  beginning  of 
democracy. 

[244] 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION 

Those  who  are  really  interested  may  them- 
selves force  the  issue.  The  appeal  does  not 
need  to  be  made  to  the  bosses,  kings,  or  rulers 
of  the  people, — ^it  can  be  made  to  the  people 
themselves.  If  the  people  will  use  the  power 
they  have,  they  can  secure  all  the  power  they 
ought  to  have. 

Democracy  is  ours  for  the  asking. 

This  is  the  pathway  to  deliverance.  It  is  a 
peaceful  revolution ;  its  weapons  are  an  appeal 
to  reason  and  to  justice;  its  warfare  is  ad- 
vanced by  public  meetings,  by  the  distribution 
of  literature  in  which  its  opponents  may  be 
heard  on  the  same  terms  with  its  friends;  by 
a  house  to  house  and  shop  to  shop  campaign 
by  special  workers  who  will  study  and  be  able 
to  explain  the  matters  presented. 

It  asks  no  one  to  endorse  what  he  does  not 
understand.  It  asks  no  one  to  support  what 
he  does  not  approve. 

When  the  power  to  act  under  the  initiative 
of  the  people  is  denied,  it  asks  for  action  only 
after  a  majority  of  all  the  people  have  peti- 
tioned all  the  people  and  have  pledged  their 
support  for  complete  self-government. 
[M5] 


DEMOCRACY  OR  DESPOTISM 

It  nowhere  asks  for  anything  except  by  ma- 
jority rule  with  an  enlightened  majority,  and 
that  majority  rule  always  within  the  reach  of 
the  people  and  subject  to  their  own  control. 

With  that  majority  rule  once  secured,  this 
program  asks  for  no  change  of  the  laws  except 
by  popular  majority.  It  will  ask  for  no  new 
public  enterprises  to  be  undertaken  until  ap- 
proved by  the  deliberate  and  informed  judg- 
ment of  the  community,  but  as  fast  as  it  can 
secure  this  power  by  this  means  and  the  suc- 
cessful doing  of  the  smaller  things  shall  justify 
the  larger  tasks,  it  will  extend  industrial  de- 
mocracy until  self-governing  institutions  shall 
be  established  in  all  the  collective  interests  of 
mankind. 

This  is  the  way  to  deliverance. 

Democracy  is  ours  for  the  asking. 


[246] 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  SCHOOL 
OF  SOCIAL  ECONOMY 

BERKELEY  CAL. 


COURSES  OF  STUDY 

Classes  in  tfistory.  Economics,   Current  Problems, 
and  in  Public  Speaking,  conducted  by  Correspondence. 


LECTURE  COURSES 

Local  Courses  of  Lessons,  or  Lectures,  or  Special 
Campaigns  in  behalf  of  Municipal  Betterment  in  the 
Public  Ownership  of  Public  Utilities,  or  In  the  Exten- 
sion of  Self-Govemment  in  Local  Matters. 


PUBLICATIONS 
Books  by  Walter  Thomas  Mills 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE 

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ADDRESS 

HILDA  F.  MILLS,  Secretary 

INTERNATIONAL  SCHOOL  OF  SOCIAL  ECONOMY 

Berkeley,  Calif. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE 

By  WALTER  THOMAS  MILLS,  M.A. 

This  Is  a  book  of  six  hundred  and  forty  pages.  It  covers 
the  whole  field  of  labor  in  its  Historic  Development  in  the  In- 
dustrial Organization  and  in  its  Political  Possibilities.  It  states 
and  answers  more  than  a  thousand  questions  which  are  mat- 
ters of  daily  discussion  and  it  Is  written  In  a  style  so  plain  and 
ciimple  that  anyone  who  can  read  can  easily  understand  It. 

CONTENTS 

Part  1 — Clearing  the  Ground. 
Part  2 — The  Evolution  of  Capitalism. 
Part  3 — The  Evolution  of  Socialism. 
Part  4 — Social    and    Economic    Questions    of    Con- 
troversy. 

Part  S — Current  Problems  of  Public  Interest. 
Part  6 — ^Political  Organization  and  Propaganda. 

Eugene  V.  Debs  says: 

"If  yoj  want  to  know  how  terrible  the  struggle  for  existence 
has  been  through  ten  thousand  years  of  human  history  and 
human  misery — If  you  want  to  know  how  dependent  the  work- 
ingman  Is  and  how  he  became  so  helpless — if  you  want  to 
know  the  only  way  of  escape  from  poverty  and  oppression  and 
know  It  so  well  you  can  tell  it  again  to  others — then  get  and 
read  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE,  by  "Walter  Thomas 
Mills,  and  you  will  not  only  know  these  things,  but  you  can 
never  be  silent  about  them  until  the  powers  which  sanction 
them  are  overthrown  forever." 

Fifty  thousand  sold.  More  than  20,000  sold  under 
a  guaranty  that  after  reading  the  book  the  money 
would  be  returned  if  the  buyer  was  dissatisfied  with 
his  purchase  and  not  one  book  was  ever  returned. 

In  cloth  binding $2.S0  postpaid 

In  paper  binding 1.00  postpaid 

Ten  copies  in  paper  binding  Soc  each,  in  cloth 
$1.50  each,  purchaser  paying  freight,  AND  FREE 
CLOTH  BOUND  COPY  for  the  local  or  Public  Library. 

THE  INTERNATIONAL  SCHOOL 
OF  SOCIAL  ECONOMY 

Berkeley,   Calif. 


AA 


r 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGiONAL  ,;BPARy  FAr/',  ITV 


A     000  865  248     9 


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